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Join the Cyberpunk revolution that never happened! -> A new issue of Legowelt's SHADOW WOLF CyBeRzInE!! Your yearly cyberpunk internet glossy ZINE in ASCII format. I got a lot of blurbs/articles/stuff sent in this year, some didn't make it - not because they weren't acceptable or good but because it would be too much/too long - anyways I want to thank everyone that send in material - it is much appreciated!
We are extremely excited to have an interview with Inter-Dimensional music pioneer IASOS. This interview was recorded two years ago when I visited him in Marin county - somehow it got lost but it was found recently and transcribed just in time for this issue! We also have an interview with Italian electronic music legend Alexander Robotnick, articles about overtones in synthesis, how to start lucid dreaming, how to sneak binaural beats into your music, a guide to Ethiopian scales, An acount on manufacturing a synth in China, a recepy for a psychdelic Garlic Space Chocolate Focaccia, Hot studio tips, music and movie reviews, a Synth Quiz, an ASCII Ski Simulator and lots more!
Enjoy
Shadow Wolf
DECEMBER 2017
In this issue:
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T H R O U G H
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SHADOW WOLF MEETS IASOS
It is 1975 - a mysterious artist called IASOS releases his debut album "Inter-Dimensional Music Through Iasos" on the Unity records label - later released on his own label. It is a record that would - along with Steven Halpern's Spectrum Suite - pioneer the new age music genre. Music so different - so strangely majestic and otherworldly - that its influence would seep deep into the consciousness of numerous artists and music styles.
In the 1980s the New Age music genre was quickly exploited by the record industry: a bunch of dolphin sounds under a synthesizer pad with some cliche mystical concepts were pushed to an audience hungry for any spiritual enlightenment countering their 1980s Reaganomics consumer lifestyles.
IASOS however remained the real deal, in an ocean of endless new age drabble, his music remains particularly different - experimental and full of fresh and wonderful ideas.
Whether you think his ideas are metaphysically peculiar or not, one can not deny the uniqueness of his music and the effect it has on the mind.
Music historian Douglas McGowan's liner notes of the 2013 I am the Centre new age compilation says it all:
one of the most startling musical debuts ever...I would go so far as to say that posterity will gradually reveal this former Bay Area dollar bin staple as one of the 20th century's most significant works of music
- something that I can fully concede with.
IASOS was born in Greece, immigrated to the USA and in the late 1960s, attended Cornell university before moving to California to immerse himself in the psychedelic counterculture. At this time -probably not entirely without cause - he started to hear strange music in his mind - music that didn't yet exist. He called it Inter-Dimensional Music and soon he figured out this was transmitted to him by a higher dimensional light being called Vista. It took him a few years before he was technically able to translate these transmissions into an earthly cohorent music 'format'.
It is September 2015. I am in Marin County California, north across the bay of San Francisco - it is a beautiful - almost Arcadian place, a region with extreme bio diversity: Oak woodlands, redwood forests, green pastures all immersed in the scent of a pacific ocean. The land of IASOS - surroundings that fit his music perfectly.
In the distance a car parks and a figure steps out. It is IASOS, still almost the same like in the 1970s footage I saw of him on youtube.
We order some food at a Greek deli and sit down for a long conversation - one that will span many subjects - from heavenly reverb to the danger of distortion ripping holes in your consciousness to being a musical time architect and many many other topics.
This is an edited transcription of that interview. It was presumed lost for a few years but was fortunately unearthed recently.
~'.'.'
SW: What would be the best way to listen to your music?
I: The closer you hear it the way Iām hearing what I created, the more you get my intended experience. And the closest way to hear the way Iām hearing it, is by listening with AKG-K240 headphones and with your eyes closed.
They have a very flat response. Meaning they donāt emphasize some frequencies more than others. Many sound systems have an unbalanced EQ response. That means they boost the very highs and they boost the very lows but not the middle. But hmmm, I like the AKG-G240 headphones because theyāre a balanced response throughout the spectrum. So if you do it that way, listen to that, and with your eyes closed, you will hear it the way I really intended it to be heard. Because thatās how Iām hearing it when I created it. So all the EQ adjustments are exactly for those headphones.
SW: Should the listener be in a special place?
I: Well, it depends on the music. For example, for Bora bora 2000, itās tropical dance music so, put it on and dance, you know. Donāt wear headphones just put on loud speakers and dance. But for other stuff like meditative stuff like Angelic Music or Timeless Sound, you can have it on any reasonably balanced headphones, speakers, or headphones. You might want to lie down or sit in a meditation position and just, space out. Itās very unique, depending on the piece.
SW: This maybe a strange question.
I: Good, I love strange questions. Go for it.
SW: I always like to have the outside sounds leaking into the studio ambience. Like the rain, storm sounds, my garden the birds, they seem to create some merging layer that makes everything more at place and less sterile.
Like a green noise that glues everything together. I think it helps in a strange way even if itās not in the recording itself. Do you have anything similar?
I: No...I have my headphones on and when I use microphones. You know, for example if Iām recording a flute. A tiny mic is right next to the mouthpiece so thereās not going to be any outside sounds anyway. And I try not to have leaks of outside sounds. If I want outside nature sounds I will intentionally put them in.
For example on my new album, I have a piece called Warm Tropical Rain. Yeah. And I record a lot of rain. And I record a lot of people splashing their feet in the rain. And I did that intentionally. So when I want nature sounds in there, Iāll put them in. But if I donāt want them in, then I donāt want any leakage. BUT...Both approaches; your approach and my approach, are perfectly valid approaches. Both of them are perfectly fine ways of working.
SW: I want to talk about VISTA, your higher dimensional being that transmits information to you. How do you receive a new piece of music in your mind from vista. Do you open up for it in a special way or can it come at any moment of the day? Does it happen automatically? Is it always there?
I: It usually happens in the evening when Iām focusing on music. And it doesnāt happen very often. Usually the way it happens is: Iāll get an idea to compose something. Iāll start working on it, before long I have a vision of the whole piece in my mind. And they honour my free will. Vista honors my free will, so he never forces me to do anything. But he tries to seduce me to do it. He tries to get me to fall in love with a piece of music so much that I say, āOk, I commit to manifesting this piece of music, I commit to making it a reality.ā And then if I commit to it, it will happen no matter what happens in my life.
I will create it.
SW: So, a large part of it is yourself that makes the music?
I: Yes. Well, two things, first of all. Theyāll sneak in the mental image of the overall piece, thatās the main thing. Which is the music technical ideas on how to create it, how it will effect people. And then when Iām working on it, he keeps giving me ideas on it. Like try this, try that, put it through reverb, play it backwards, you know, get the sound. I get a lot of ideas while Iām working on it.
But to a great extent, I was trained by Vista very very clearly before I was born. So for a big extent we are on the same page. We have similar understandings, similar preferences.
SW: Ok. Because heās an angel? Or what, is he or she?
I: No, in my understanding there are three kingdoms. Thereās a human kingdom, when you evolve from being human you will eventually become an ascended master. Thereās the angelic kingdom, when an angel evolves, it gradually becomes an archangel. And an archangel eventually becomes a Maha archangel. And thereās the elemental nature kingdom. Like fairies, elves, dwarves, when they evolve they might become a Deva of a mountain. And eventually they may become a deva of the whole planet.
And eventually they may become a high level Elohim. And vista is the Elohim of the Fifth Ray. Which is a very high position, even higher than the Archangels, although itās in a different level of the evolutionary scheme. But they separate it out like a prism. The spiritual energies that the sun radiates, and then they give it to the archangels, who then distribute it to the angels that then work with them. So, heās from the elemental nature kingdom. But itās sort of like an archangel but a little bit higher.
SW: Ok. Iām gonna ask a few more questions about this if you donāt mind.
I: I donāt mind! Just ask everything. Donāt be shy, go for it.
SW: Are there any parts of the information that vista transmits that cannot be translated to music you can hear? Like do you get information about frequencies, melodies for sounds that cannot be heard or even comprehended by humans. Or that donāt even exist in our dimension. If so, could you even describe it vaguely or, is it impossible?
I: Most of what he transmits is music that can be recorded. Otherwise whatās the point of transmitting it? You know we made an agreement to work together. We made an agreement before I was born. āIasos youāre part of the game, you will incarnate on earth. You will become proficient with music and then Iāll transmit music ideas to you, and then youre task is to make it manifest it, get it out, publicly, so it can benefit people, so it can help them raise their vibrations, as our whole planet is raising its vibrations.ā
So thereāll be no point in him sending me music that canāt be manifested. However, thereās certain things, that are hard for some people to catch. Let me give you an example. If a person is sad and depressed almost all the time, and you play music thatās happy, he wonāt resonate with it, because happiness is not in his emotional body. It's outside his emotional range. Likewise, if you have a person thatās feeling very brave, and is never afraid; if you play music with fear in it, he wonāt resonate with it because itās outside his emotional range. He doesnāt feel fear. See?
So, I created a piece recently that emotionally speaking, is so in high vibrations that I do not expect most people to be able to really sense it. For them it would just be strange sounds. Itās on my new album, Essence of Lumuria, and the piece is called, Infinite Mercy and Compassion. And itās emotionally at such a rarefied high frequency that I donāt expect most people to really feel those emotions. There will be a few here and there that do, maybe two percent, but most of them, it will just be, you know, strange sounds.
https://iasos.bandcamp.com/track/infinite-mercy-compassion
SW: How did you make that then? What is exactly the part of it that is so high? How does it translate into the sound?āØāØ
I: Well, most of the sounds are created with violin sounds, and later in the piece female voice sounds. But what makes it special is what I call paradox harmonics. Which is; each octave can have a different chords, but all those chords fit the same scale. And since each chord produces a particular emotion, different chords at different octaves produce different emotions simultaneously. All of which fit together nicely.
SW: So like an emotional chord, or something?
I: Exactly. Exactly. And thatās unusual for earth music. In fact, I havenāt heard much of it. I played with this idea a little bit when I did 'The Angels of Comfort'. But this piece, Infinite Mercy and Compassion is a much further developed version of that same idea. Yeah like an emotional chord if you play them simultaneously. But they all blend nicely.
SW: Ok, and how do they blend nicely? Do you research that - is it some science?
āØāØI: No itās all intuition I donāt use science. Iām not gonna wait for science to catch up to what Iām doing. Maybe in another 50 years. See, science canāt even measure emotions. They can measure body responses to emotions, but theyāre not directly measuring emotions. Iām talking about emotions, Iām saying things about emotions and they go, āHow do you know? Prove it!ā And I canāt prove it, because science cannot yet measure emotions, they can only measure your body responses. Like the galvanic skin response or electric brainwaves. But theyāre not really measuring emotions. And emotions vibrate on frequencies. Negative emotions vibrate on lower frequencies, positive emotions vibrate on higher frequencies. The border between them is in the range of melancholy.
Melancholy is just a little bit lower than that middle range. And from melancholy you keep getting lower and lower frequencies all the way down to zero. And zero is being frozen in fear. When you are frozen in fear your emotional body actually stops vibrating. Itās got zero vibrations, see. Now thatās a limited range because it goes from zero to only a finite range, but positive emotions go up up up many many octaves. Just like on a piano keyboard you can have a-flat, an octave higher, a-flat, an octave higher, a-flat, octave meaning twice the frequency. The same thing with the emotions. You can have octaves of emotions for example, you can have the emotion of, āIām glad,ā emotion an octave higher, āIām happy,ā an octave higher, āJoy,ā an octave higher, āecstacyā an octave higher, ārapture,ā and it keeps going without any upward limit. So positive emotions have an unlimited range whereas negative emotions have a limited range.
Now, the intensity is different than frequency. You can have a high intensity negative emotion like anger, or you can have a low intensity negative emotion of like, āIām a little sad,ā you know. And so intensity is a separate issue, likewise with positive emotions. You can have a low intensity positive emotion like, āIām feeling good,ā But you can have an intense version of it, high intensity, high amplitude, like, āIām feeling extatic!ā.
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SW: Your music is always quite ecstatic, right?
āØI: Yeah, itās my specialty.
SW: But in your structure of your music did you ever think about first making a part melancholic and after that more ecstatic?
I: I would never, in my life, even if you pay me ten million dollars, I would never ever ever create any music that has negative emotions. Because that exactly contradicts the whole reason why Iām here on earth.
SW: But wouldnāt that make it stronger if you use it as some kind of contrast?
I: No, you can have plenty of contrast without having to go negative. As a matter of fact my music does have that. Example in my Realms of light you can listen to Rapture of the Heart, or on my new album you can listen to, Smooth Sailing Over Enchanted Lands. It has three orgasms in it, it has three emotional peaks. It gets really intense, it has quiet parts, as a matter of fact it get very very quiet, then it gets really intense but itās all positive. Itās all positive emotions. You donāt need to go negative to have a contrast between high intensity and low intensity. So those are examples of two pieces that have wild contrast.
Smooth Sailing Over Enchanted Lands
SW: Iām gonna ask you a question about your first album, 1975 Interdimensional Music Through Iasos
I: Hahaha yeah 1975
SW: With the music technology that was available to you it must have been...
I: Let me tell you what I had then. I had a stereo tape recorder, a Sony 7,5 inch quarter-inch tape stereo. You could record two channels, flip it over. Record another two channels. And I had another one that was like that with only four channels, so I could be recording all four channels. Fill those channels, mix it into stereo in the other machine, then put that back on here, so two channels are full and the other two channcels are empty...and then Iād record two more, mix that, and that would be the piece. So basically, you get the result of six channels. Thatās how I did it.
And a lot of it was electronic processing of acoustic instruments. And the electronic processing of acoustic instruments is very simple, like spring reverb, or univibe to give it vibrato or phaseshifter...very simple stuff.
SW: Did you have a synthesizer that you used? For that album?
I: Not really, I had an organ that I used in a few places.
SW: Oh, because some if it sounds really like a synthesizer
I: Yeah, not really a synthesizer.
SW: Just effect boxes?
I: Yeah for example, I borrowed a vibraphone from a friend of mine, and Iād record things on it and Iād play the tape back at double speed and youād get these wonderful tinkly bells. THen I put an Echoplex through it, so wonderful tinkly bells with a very high fast echo. Iād record piano runs and put the tapes backwards so youād get twiiuuup twiuuuup twiuuuuup...
SW: And as the music technology advanced I guess it became easier to translate the information you got from Vista?
I: Yeah thatās exactly correct.
SW: Could you give us some examples of things you couldnāt translate at first but now its possible?
I: Sure Iāll give you two examples. On my 2015 album, "Essence of Lemuria", you can listen to the second piece, Smooth Sailing Over Enchanted Lands, which sounds like a symphony orchestra and you can listen to the fourth piece, Buddhic Spherical Consciousness, which sounds like a cosmic universal space. I couldnāt do those before.
Buddhic Spherical Consciousness
SW: Ok and thatās because you can use computers and VST's?
I: VSTs primarily, yeah.
SW: In the 1980s you started using synthesizers? Or late 1970s?
I: I donāt keep track of time, for when I started. But I can tell you that when synthesizers started coming out I didnāt like them at all. To be honest, they sounded very very cold, I didnāt like them at all.
SW: Sterile.
I: Yes, sterile. I didnāt like them. Finally, one came out: it was the RMI-Keyboard computer, it was made by an organ company, but, you could change the waveshape, by sticking these computer cards, you know these old computer cards that have holes punched into them?
SW: Yes, punch cards
I: Yeah, and each card has 32 numbers on it, and those 32 numbers define the first 1/4th of a waveshape, and then by playing it backwards youād get the second 1/4th, then the negative gives you the third 1/4th, then the negative backwards gives you the fourth 1/4th. So you'd create a waveshape with those numbers.
So I could get different sounds just by slipping in different cards, and I could have combinations of four sounds that way.
SW: And what album did you start using that for the first?
I: Elixir.
SW: And you never used MOOGS or, you used an ARP right?āØāØ
I: I used, and I still have, an ARP PRO DGX, I like it very much. Itās monophonic, only one note, but itās great for melody work.
SW: It has really nice Aftertouch and stuff right?
I: it has the best aftertouch of anything. Because Aftertouch and Breath are very intuitive ways to emotionally control music, because if a person is feeling more intensely emotional, itās natural to press harder. And if a person is feeling more intense emotions its natural to blow harder. So both Breath controllers and Aftertouch are wonderfully intuitive way to modulate the emotionality, the emotional intensity of whatever youāre creating as a melody.
SW: Do you also use other controllers like, for example hand controllers?
I: Yeah, I have a harp controller. itās a metal box that has two plastic strips and each strip has many buttons underneath it, and each button corresponds to a different note on the scale and you can program what scale and what key. Like drrring, I get the note and scale, drrring, I get a different scale. And so just by strumming it with your fingers itās like strumming a harp. Although it doesnāt have to sound like a harp. It can sound like anything.
SW: Did you make that yourself?
I: No I worked with a company that produced it. I was their musical test pilot, gave them ideas on how to improve it. But then they decided to not actually market it because they figured it wouldnāt make any money, which I think is a crazy idea, but I got to have one. Hahahaha.
SW: Whatās it called the machine or it never got a name?
I: Harp controller as far as I know. I personally call it the golden harp.
SW: Your music is mostly high frequency...they always sound very soft and round. You never use a lot of harsh distorted low frequencies.
I: I would never. I try to create beautiful sounds ā when you go to heaven listening to music, there wonāt be any distortion there. So if youāre a lover of fuzz guitar, youāll be very disappointed when you go to heaven because thereās no distortion there, at all! So right now distortion is very fashionable in earth music, but itās gonna be totally absent when you go to heaven because, believe me, itās not there. Thereās no distortion. Just harmony. Just just just only just harmony. And extreme harmony.
SW: And why is that? That distortion...?
I: It rips holes in your emotional body, in your etheric body, itās very harmful. You can kill plants with it.
SW: Hmm.
I: Just put on distortion guitar in front of a plant and play it for a few days,the plant will shrivel up and die. Itās bad for you. It creates holes in your aura. Now the reason guitarists like it is because it creates passion. But you can still create passion, in fact, if you start with distortion guitar and you filter out the high frequencies, which amounts to smoothing out the corners and the sharp edges. If you look at a wave distortion itās got sharp corners, because they clip it.
Those sharp corners, like a chainsaw, it cuts holes in your emotional body. But if you filter out the high frequencies, itās like rounding the corners. If you look at it through an oscilloscope, it like, rounds the corner , and so it makes it a smoother sound. That way you can still get the passionate effects which is what fuzz is good for, without having the effect of really ripping holes in your etheric body and your emotional body. And so sometimes, in rare cases, I might start off with some distortion but then I will significantly filter out the high frequencies to round out the corners, so itās not harmful.
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SW: Are there any particular angelic scales, chord-harmonies that are typically, like angelic, or come from the world of Vista? Like certain scales?
I: No, they can use many different scales. The interesting thing is, each scale is a relationship of frequency-ratios, and it doesnāt matter what the actual frequencies are. You can change the key, but the relationship of frequencies remains the same, even though the actual frequencies are different. If you go from C-Sharp to F-Major you know, etc. But each scale, which is a relationship of frequency-ratios, produces a unique emotional effect. So, a classical composer that is a master of harmony, has a palette of emotions at his disposal. And if he wants one particular emotion, he can use a scale that will generate that emotion, and if he wants a different emotion he can use a scale that generates that emotion. And it doesnāt matter what the key is because no matter what key youāre in, that scale will generate that emotion.
Now, the angelic beings- they use many different scales but there are certain scales that they tend to not use because they have a depressing effect. The most significant one they wonāt use is the Blues scale, because it has an extremely depressing effect. After all it is called the Blues scale. What does that mean? It means you get sad. So it really does have a depressing effect so, they wouldnāt use something like that. But they use many different scales though.
The important thing is harmony. The key word is harmony. And the key thing is, listen to your heart. See how it makes you feel, if it makes you feel good; use it. If it doesnāt make you feel good, donāt use it. Simple.
SW: I wanna talk about the sounds themselves a little bit. The ones you synthesize and program. How do they evoke certain emotions, like certain sounds do you have tricks for that?
I: Well the main trick is that I have a library, as a WORD document. And typically a musician creating music will be hearing a sound in his mind and will be looking for a sound right here that is close to the sound in his mind. And if you waste a lot f time trying to find that sound, you forget the music you were initially trying to create.
The idea is to find that sound quickly and efficiently.
So, I developed a system to find it quickly and efficiently, which is that I have a sound library as a Word document. You know a word processor. And just like on a webpage you can have links that can go to another part of the same page. Likewise in Word you can have links within that page, so at the top I might have. āStrings brass, woodwinds" etc. But if I click on "Brass", it will go to sub-categories. It might go to trumpet, French horn, flugel horn, trombone, etc.
And then if I go further, I click on French horn, thereāll be further subdivisions, single French horn, or "French Horn ensemble" If I go to single "French Horn", then Iāll have all the sounds from all my synthesizers. All my software, VSTs, all my hardware synthesizers, theyāll be all in the sound that I like, and it will tell me the address of where to find it. It will say, go to this synthesizer, go to this bank, itās program number 23, stuff like that. And it also has a description, how it compares to all the other French horn sounds, and I also give it a number from 0-100, scaling how likely I am to be using that particular sound. And so the first thing on the list is the highest number.
I have all these numbers at the top of the list. So if I see a French horn sound I might see one at 98, which means Iām very likely to want to use that one, I might have another one from another synthesizer which is 95, I still might want to use it so. I check them out, that way I can quickly find the sound Iām after.
SW: Ok, what I wanted to know is how do you evoke certain emotions, with the sound. Like with the use of vibrato, tremolo or filters, or do you have any systems for that or?
I: Well intuition is the only thing I can answer to that. I let my intuition guide me. Of course when a person is feeling something and then the feeling gets more intense. Thereās certain sound equivalents to the feeling getting more intense.
One, the sound gets louder. The other is thereās more high frequency content in the sound. And the third one is the vibrato becomes more predominant. So those correspond to feeling something and then the feeling gets more intense. Louder, brighter and more vibrato.
But in general, I just let my intuition guide me. Thereās no set answer for that.
SW: I wanna talk about echo and reverb effects. For me echo and delay effects are very important, because it does something strange with time I think.
I: Whatās strange is using pre-reverb. Where the reverb precedes the sound.
SW: How do you think this echo or reverb effect changes the sound. Is it some kind of uhmmm, something in a space-time dimensional or in a higher dimensional context?
I: Both. First of all, whatās the difference between reverb and echo?
Reverb is having so many echoes that are so closely spaced that itās one continuous sound. So reverb is really many closely spaced echoes. So theyāre really the same thing but the spacing is primarily the real difference. In heaven, thereās a lot of reverb, because thereās a lot of space.
When you add echo or reverb, it subjectively creates the sense of a bigger space. As a matter of fact, many people when theyāre mixing, they can control how close or far a sound is by how much reverb or echo they add. They want the sound close: they donāt add any reverb or echo. If they want the sound far away, they make the volume less but add a lot of reverb to it. So itās like a front back control to how much reverb you have.
Itās a wonderful way to create spaces in different spaces and the wonderful thing is now with convolution reverb: it enters a magical world and for those who donāt understand convolution reverb, hereās how it works: Letās say I want to create the s sound of me talking in a cave. Letās say I go to the cave and I blow up a balloon and I have a portable recorder and I record the sound of popping that balloon. Pop! So the recorder records the sound of the balloon popping, which is basically all frequencies but very briefly. The recorder records the echoing through that cave. Now I can bring that sound back into my studio and I can record me talking, dry.
No echo - no reverb just me talking. And then convolution is magic. What convolution does is it multiplies one sound with another. if I multiply the sound of my voice talking, with the sound of my balloon popping in a cave., with convolution reverb, the result is: it sounds like Iām talking in a cave.
If I hit a timbale drum, BOOM, and I record that sound and I convolute the sound of me talking with hitting the timbale drum, it sounds like Iām talking inside a timbale drum. If I record the sound of a balloon pop or a pistol shot inside the Taj Mahal, then later on I convolute that into the sound of me talking or any sound really, then it sounds like me talking in the Taj Mahal. So convolution now is wonderful and totally magic because it allows you to superimpose the ambiance of any space onto any dry recorder sound. It's really really magic, really potent, but people use it just for reverb. You donāt have to just use it for reverb. You can use it for all kinds of wild effects. For example, I made a sound of just white noise and then I made that ramp up in volume. So it goes from quiet and then it ramps up in volume. If I convolute that with an other sound, itās like hearing that sound with pre-reverb. You can get all kinds of incredible wild effects. Outrageous playground.
SW: Is there any kind of higher dimensional context?
I: Yeah the higher dimensional context is; thereās a lot of heaven, thereās a lot of reverb in heaven. Thereās a lot of reverb in the music of the higher dimensions. So here on earth if you play music with a lot of reverb, it tends to remind people of heavenly realms.
SW: And where do you see delay then? Do they also have delay in heaven or is it mostly reverb?
I: Mostly reverb. When Paul Horn released Inside the Taj Mahal, for the first time many people were hearing music that was like heaven music. Because it had a lot of reverb. Before you didnāt have a lot of music with such a long reverb. Itās the reverb of the Taj Mahal, an eight second reverb, and for many people it triggered something deep inside them cause itās like a subconscious reminder of music from the heavenly realms..
SW: Iām going to continue about the echo and the time, more about the time itself in tracks...
I: When I did Crystal*White*Fire*Light, one of the pieces on my Elixir album, there were a lot of time manipulations in there. But especially pre-echo and pre-reverb. Which tends to stimulate a personsā precognitive abilities. A personsā ability to sense the future before it happens. Yeah you can stimulate that by letting people listen to pre-echo and pre-delay.
And the way you do that in the old days was with a tape. You put the tape backwards on the tape recorder. While you record you put the reverb on another channel, on another track, and once youāve recorded the reverb, you make it forward again; return the tape to itās original direction, so now the echo or reverb precedes the sound rather than follow it. Nowadays, it's of course much easier.
SW: Thatās very interesting, I never thought of it.
I: Yeah and when you do that, it tends to stimulate precognition in the listener. And "Crystal*White*Fire*Light" had a lot of that in it.
SW: Do you see time as linear? Or something that just happens all the time? Do you see it more as a metaphysical thing?
I: I can talk a lot about time. First of all, as a musician I consider myself a time architect. Someone that creates forms in time. According to many of the advanced scientists, time is a spiral spiraling within a donut, continuously in a loop, itās spiraling within a loop. But the most profound thing is: Time is an illusion which each personsā consciousness creates. The truth is thereās only the eternal now, all things that have happened in the past are happening now, thereās only now. But, our consciousness creates the sensation of the flow of time because we experience it one moment at a time.
I can give you an analogy of this. In a movie theatre thereās a projector that has a big roll of movie film. If you put it in the film projector, the projector shows it one frame at a time, in rapid sequence, so you get the sensation of a smooth flow of time. But if the projectionist takes that reel out of the projector, puts it on the floor and opens it up, you can see all the frames at the same time. Thatās more like reality, seeing all frames at the same time. Thereās only now. But your consciousness is like the film projector, only one frame at a time. Billions of frames every second so you get the sensation of a smooth flow of time, which is an illusion that each personsā consciousness is creating. And the irony for me is, well, if Iām a time architect and time is an illusion, then all I am doing is creating an illusion hahaha. Makes me feel funny about my career.
SW: Would it be possible to give an example of that with sound, in music? If you would do that with music, it would sound very chaotic, of course, it would be white noise, basically?
I: No no no, you canāt do it that way because youāre experiencing music through your consciousness and your consciousness is flowing through linear time. And you can only experience linear time while you are functioning in your consciousness.
Now, there are people, sometimes with psychedelic drugs sometimes with high states of meditation, who achieve a state of sensing, āitās all happening now.ā Many years ago I had a lady friend here in Sausalito, she kept saying to me, āitās all happening now!ā and I had no idea what she was talking about, it just seemed like crazy talk to me.
Now, I understand what she was referring to then. Because there really is only now, so what this means is. Have you heard of past life readings? You go to a psychic and they tell you what you were doing in a past life. Well, you can have a past life reading, you can just as easily have a future life reading.
Because its all happening right now. All your lifetimes are happening right now. Well, what does that have to do with free will, then I donāt have any free will. Yes, you do because you pick how your going to steer that because it can go infinite different ways. So, while youāre in your normal consciousness, you can only experience linear time, because thatās one of the definitions of having an earth consciousness is; experiencing linear time. And when we reincarnate we agree to experience it that way. Youāre higher self, you are a projection from your higher self. Iām a projection from my higher self. Your higher self is outside time, and it projects many parts of itself as incarnations in many places. One might be 3000bc, another might be 1967, another might be 2015, anther might be 4312, and from the point of view of the higher self all those incarnations are happening at the same time, getting information through all of them simultaneously. But for each one of us, we're in a time-space matrix. When youāre in a time-space matrix thereās past present and future and thereās space. When youāre outside of it its all happening in the here and now.
SW: As a musical time architect, is there some kind of control you can do with the music?
I: Absolutely not. Iām a linear consciousness. I can only do the linear rate of time flow. I can speed it up, you can play a tape double speed, you know, I can ramp things up faster or slower but its still linear time; past present future. Itās vector, it can only go in one direction, I can't really play with that too much.
I can do funny tricks like pre-reverb and pre-echo. Jimmy Hendrix playing guitar backwards, it had great emotional effects that most music on earth didnāt have. Because with normal earth music you either get a sound that builds up, sustains and then goes down like playing a violin. Or you get a sudden beginning and a gradual fade like plugging a guitar string. You donāt get sounds that build up and suddenly stop.
Thatās what you get when you play guitar backwards. So certain sounds are pretty rare. And when I do my harp controller, one of the sounds I use is the sound for every note builds up gradually, then suddenly stops, well, fairly suddenly stops. And when you do a whole stream of these, like strumming a harp, you get all these overlaps, beginnings of notes, which has a very unique emotional effect.
SW: Sort of like an arpeggio, a polyphonic arpeggio effect?
I: No nothing like that. Itās many sounds where each goes like *whhaaAAA, you know, very gradually. But they overlap because youāre strumming the sequence. And so as one is building up, the next one is building up, whilst the first one was still building up. So when youāre playing them simultaneously, all at the same time while strumming them, that has a very unique emotional effect that very little earth instruments have, none that Iāve heard, have that emotional effect. Very rare.
SW: Ok, almost the last question, on the paper. I read somewhere that youāve been visiting alien worlds and hearing their music in your sleep?
I: (LAUGHS LOUD) You talk about āNighttime .. sounds on planet allura?ā is that what youāre referring to? Yeah. At the bottom left corner it says, one. āAll this is purely imaginary, and two, your imagination is real.ā However, this is what I do do. If a musician wants to stimulate their idea of what music could be, rather than staying in the rut of the conventional ideas of what earth music is, like chorus versus chorus and stuff like that. What you can do is this, just before you go to sleep at night, intend, āWhile Iām sleeping tonight I intend, that Iām going to be visiting other civilizations around the universe and Iām going to be exploring and experiencing their idea of music.ā Now if you do that every night before you fall asleep, when you wake up, changes are you wont remember any of it, but thatās ok, just keep doing it. If you keep on doing it for about two to three weeks, pretty soon unusual music ideas will bubble up to your consciousness from your sub-consciousness.
Things that you experience then, that you donāt remember consciously, will gradually start bubbling up to your conscious mind, from your subconscious mind. All these unusual music ideas. And all you have to do is experience them when youāre sleeping at night and all you have to do is set out a clear strung intention just before you fall asleep.
SW: Thatās lucid, right? It sounds like lucid dreaming.
I: It can be lucid, but it doesnāt need to be necessarily. Even if you wake up and donāt remember anything, even then youāre benefitting from it. If you can do it lucidly thatās even better, but it doesnāt have to be lucid.
SW: Can you remember sometimes? Or is it all unconscious?āØāØ
I: Let me give you an example. I heard music that sounded like a beaded curtain and how can I do that with sound? I finally figured out a way and you can hear that in a piece of my new album "Essence of Lemuria" in the piece called Warm Tropical Rain where each raindrop, coming down independently of each other, and all the drops fit a chord with the notes and as the chords change, the notes change, but itās all just beaded drops of sounds coming down. So thatās an example. I got that idea by visiting other civilizations, exploring their idea of music.
SW: But do you also see the architecture these civilizations have?
I: If my intention was: I want to experience the architecture of other civilizations, then Iād probably remember that. But that was not my intention. I could start tonight saying, I want to explore other civilizations and explore their architecture. But I can tell you this already, they tend to have curves and avoid right angles. Because angles are very unsupportive to life. So you wonāt find right angles at all. And many of their buildings are made by crystalline substances controlled by consciousness, and they can grow their homes, for example theyāll have a crystalline home, a clear wall where you can see the backyard. And if you want to have privacy you can telepathically tell the wall, āplease go opaque,ā and the wall will go opaque. Please, I want to have a couch now, and a couch will grow out of the wall. A couch you can sit on. And its wonderful. You donāt need anymore, you need the space. "You can go away now", and it will retract back into the wall. Itās crystalline material that is highly responsive to consciousness. And a lot of them I know, have that.
SW: You are kind of like an alien dream anthropologist?
I: [laughs out loud] Iāve never been called that. Once, a woman said, āYouāre an animal from another dimension.ā
SW: You were talking about how VISTA gives you inspiration, he also tells you what equipment to use?
I: No he tells me technical ways to achieve the sound effects.
SW: You also said that at the same time, the technology has evolved. So then would you say that because the message was the same right? Or would you say that, while the technology evolved, because the earth is vibrating on a different frequency, that the messages are automatically tuning in into those developments. So itās all one flow.
I: Yes, itās all one flow. Basically, VISTA adjusts his technological suggestions to what equipment he knows I have available then. He knows I have this; I donāt have that. Heāll adjust it to whatās available.
SW: So you could say that youāre music evolves, and the equipment you use evolves, we can mirror the involvement of the earth-
I: Yes, see, everybody is going really fast pace now. For example, no one can keep up with all the VSTiās that are available. They keep on going faster than anyone can keep up, because they keep on going faster with their mind, whilst they are creating these wonderful synthesizers. In one synthesizer, thereās a whole galaxy of sounds. It took me three months to explore the sounds in Omnisphere...to explore every single one of them. And I logged the ones that were of interest to me. Which were maybe 2 or 3% of the sounds. But it was worth it. And so I go through all of them, and it takes a while because these synthesizers have such a vast realm of possibilities.
SW: What other art forms can be inspired through VISTA. Film?
I: Yes, as a matter of fact, thereās one called" Crystal Vista" HAHA. If youāve seen my DVD called "Realms of Light - the DVD", you can see examples of it on YouTube.
SW: You get the images also from VISTA?āØ
I: Oh yeah, I had my music album ā¦ after I finished I thought this is very visually inspiring music. Iād like to make it into a DVD .. but nobody was doing the kind of celestial visuals that I wanted to see with my music. So I, thought, I will do it myself. So it took me four years to master video special effects, and another 3.5 years to create the visuals to synchronize with the music. So it was a 7.5-year project for that DVD. BUT, if you want to see Vista's ideas on visuals. Go see Realms of Light the DVD.. Youāll see
SW: Do you do that on a computer? What kind of program?
āØāØI: Yeah I was also using Premiere and After Effects. But most of what I did was through plugins in After Effects. Most of the time I was studying plugins.
They donāt call him VISTA for nothing. His specialty is the All Seeing Eye of God, which really means a highly evolved third eye. And they call him VISTA because his specialty, even more than music, is god vision. Divine visions. The musical outpour of divinity through sound and visions, through visuals.
And the reason why I like to do visuals, like in my DVDs, but also in all my concerts...since 1973 Iāve always had visuals in my concerts. The reason is because theyāre very powerful when they work together. Because music has the potential of, not the obligational role but the potential to induce divine emotions. And visuals again, not the duty or the responsibility, but they have the potential to induce divine thought forms. And when theyāre working together: the music creating divine emotions and the visuals inducing divine thought forms, when theyāre working together synchronistically and synergistically, their combined influences can ignite a person into a higher and more expanded state of consciousness. And thatās the whole point of my multi media concerts and my dvdās.
SW: One more last question. Do you think there are also demons, that some people have a demon evil minded being controlling them?
I: Yes, of course just listen to heavy metal...See there are many floors to reality. From the lowest frequency negative, to the highest celestial angelical heavenly. And each person gets to pick where he focuses his attention. It's his life - every single human being. Musicians are merchants that selling emotions served on the platter of sound. What musicians are really selling is not sound, but emotions, and people get the emotions through the sound. And so for every emotion that you can imagine, there are musicians who specialize in exactly that emotion. For example, I specialize in inducing the emotion of ecstasy.
~'.'.'
Time's running out on the recorder and we decide its time to stop. We make some pictures and say goodbye. Iasos drives off into the forested distance of Marin county. Indeed like the wild animal returning to his own dimension.
S.W
transcribed by Sierra Nobo III
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Ok, its not really a quiz I guess, then I have to ask some questions - I just like to use the word QUIZ - you don't use the letters Q and Z in a word that often. So this is more a guessing game...
Can you guess which synthesizers these are?
A great game for the whole family or by yourself.
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- ______________________________________________________________________________- | | ______ _______ __ _______ ______ __ _______ ____ ___ ___ _____ _____ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |_|_|_| | |_|_|_| |_| |_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_| |_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_| | | | | ____________________________________________________________________________| | | | | | | | _________________ o | | | | -------- ------- [] [][][][] ___ [] [] o o | | | | --- -- - -- - - [][][][] |___| [] | | | | --- -- - -- - - [] [][][][] ___ [] [] o o | | | | --- -- - -- - - [] |___| | | | | ________ _______ __________________ ___ __ _____ _________________________| | | |_____________________________________________________________________________| | | | |\____________________________________________________________/| | | | \\ || | | ||| | | | | ||| | | ||| | | | | ||| | | ||| | | | | ||| | | | | \\ \\ || | | ||| | | | | ||| | | ||| | | | | ||| | | ||| | | | | ||| | | | | \\ \\ || | | ||| | | | | ||| | | ||| | | | | ||| | | ||| | | | | ||| | | | | \\ || | | ||| | | | | ||| | | ||| | | | | ||| | | ||| | | | | ||| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | || | | | |______________| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | || | | - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -
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COMING EARLY 2018:
Satomi Taniyama's long awaited EDEN IN A SEA OF MISERY album will appear on Nightwind records early 2018 - 2xvinyl CD and cassette versions are being prepared. it will come with a graphic novel revolving around Satomi's backpacking adventures in an eerie seaside holiday village.
The LOCH NESS Commodore 64 original videogame soundtrack gets a tape & CD release - entitled LOCH NESS EXPANDED SOUNDTRACK - the release will include new unreleased material made on the Commodore 64 SID soundchip and brand new artwork//
Nightwind records is going to re-issue some classic Strange Life releases - Smackos - Computer Day & Sammy Osmo - Schaduw Horizon will be the first ones. The albums will be remastered and recorded on CHROME Type II cassette with lots of info in the inlays. Maybe they will come with more stuff too, we will see.
Expect early 2018.
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/ _|_ __ __ _ _ __ ____ / _| __ _| | ___| | _____ _ __ | |__ __ _ _ _ ___
| |_| '__/ _` | '_ \|_ / | |_ / _` | |/ __| |/ / _ \ '_ \| '_ \ / _` | | | / __|
| _| | | (_| | | | |/ / | _| (_| | | (__| < __/ | | | | | | (_| | |_| \__ \
|_| |_| \__,_|_| |_/___| |_| \__,_|_|\___|_|\_\___|_| |_|_| |_|\__,_|\__,_|___/
_ _ _ .
| |_ _ _ _ __ ___ | | _____ __ ___ _ _ ___| |_ ___ _ __ ___
| __| | | | '_ \ / _ \| |/ _ \ \ / / / __| | | / __| __/ _ \ '_ ` _ \ .
| |_| |_| | |_) | (_) | | __/\ V / \__ \ |_| \__ \ || __/ | | | | |
\__|\__,_| .__/ \___/|_|\___| \_/ |___/\__, |___/\__\___|_| |_| |_| . .
|_| |___/
.
| . . .
| | . ____________
. / \ | _________________ / _ __ ___ \
|,-.| | / ____ \ __ \
||||| ____________ || \___ _ |
| | | | \|________ \ __ | .
| | | |____|______|_ | __| __ \ | .
. | | | | | | | | \_ |
| | |____|______| | |___ | |
. | | | | | ///\\\\ \| .
. / | \ ____|______|___ | ---- |
/ | \ | | | |
/_____|_____\ __|______|_____ |__|______/ |
. _/ | \_ | | |__________|_
/________|________\ . ______/\ / \ / \________
_/ | \_ ........ / o_o_ \ \_/ / / ___o o\
/_________| | ________\ . / | / \ | / \
/ || | || \ . / | |/ \| / |
|__________| | |__________| ...... / | | ||/ |
|__________|_| |_|__________| . / \ | | |
||__|___|_/ =| |= \_|___|__|| .
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Let's return to the height of the late cold war - circa 1987
BONN was the capital of West Germany - the CHAOS COMPUTER CLUB ruled supreme - the Commodore AMIGA was the most advanced home computer on the market - New Wave and Punk were making way for a new strange electronic subculture
The mis-en-scene of FRANZ FALCKENHAUS - WESTERN EUROPEAN SUPER SPY
Giallo records is going to release a compilation of previously CD only FRANZ FALCKENHAUS material entitled TUPOLEV SYSTEM
It will be the first time this material will be released on vinyl and will come with a full color artwork sleeve. Releasedate somewhere in February.
For those who don't know - Franz Falckenhaus is a fictional cold war spy who released four albums on the defunct Strange Life records - mostly in the minimal wavish cold war electro soundtrack genre. He made four albums between 2006 and 2010. The first two ones were made in a couple of days on an EMU Vintage Pro through a Korg Ampworx FX unit. Later on Falckenhaus switched to a DX7IID and TR808.
There was also a videogame based around him called TRIDENT CRISIS.
This came out on the Commodore 64 in 2010 and was programmed rather hastely for an Intergalactic FM benefit auction event. The game came with the Secret Microcassettes release - of which only 1 copy exists which sold at the auction for 200 UK pounds to someone in England.
Trident Crisis is considered to be one of the worst videogames ever on the commodore 64. Presented as an exciting cold war 'interactive spy novel' it was a text only adventure game with an extremely basic unintelligible A.I.parser.
The aim of the game is to escape from the eastern bloc state Dagavonia, dodging enemy agents and police, finding a covert way to escape on a train to the west.
You can download it here and run it on a Commodore 64 emulator.
TRACKLISTING Franz Falckenhaus TUPOLEV SYSTEM
coming on GIALLO RECORDS February 2018
o . . . . . .
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/ _ \ \ / / _ \ '__| __/ _ \| '_ \ / _ \/ __| o .
| (_) \ V / __/ | | || (_) | | | | __/\__ \
\___/ \_/ \___|_| \__\___/|_| |_|\___||___/ .
o
. . . o
_ _ _ _ . .
(_)_ __ ___ _ _ _ __ | |_| |__ ___ ___(_)___
| | '_ \ / __| | | | '_ \| __| '_ \ / _ \/ __| / __| .
| | | | | \__ \ |_| | | | | |_| | | | __/\__ \ \__ \ .
|_|_| |_| |___/\__, |_| |_|\__|_| |_|\___||___/_|___/
|___/
. o . o . . .
o o o o
. . _____
/\ o | | . |\ | |
/ \ | | | \ | || |
___/ \ ____ __| | ___ ___| \____ _|||||||||__
\ / | | | || |
\/ |___| | |
. o o o . . o o o
. . . . .
Synth sounds can sound very sterile sometimes, especially if you only have 1 waveform - one oscillator - a static cold flat wave.
Of course, you can add some vibrato with an LFO on the pitch to make it less sterile and more alive. But you can also add soft 'overtone harmonics' to make it sound more 'organic' and less harsh.
An important factor in real instruments, and what gives them their character, is how certain harmonics resonate in and outside the instrument.
For example:
When you hit a note on a piano you don't just hear the pure pitch of the note you just played. Inside, certain other strings apart from the one you just hit also vibrate, a lot softer in volume, almost unnoticeable.... but enough to give a certain harmonic content and character to the sound.
Nature has its way and these harmonic frequencies always follow the same path, we won't go in too much scientific blablah here now if you want to know more about that look it up in google.
So the frequencies that give these harmonics, which are always pretty much the same, are called overtones or partials.
And these are the notes/frequencies of these overtones:
C - C(1 octave up) - G - C(2 octaves up) - E - G
With these notes in mind its easy to create 'natural' sounding overtones on a synthesizer.
EXAMPLE:
Let's say we have 5 oscillator synth, a modular system of some sorts. and we want to add some overtone harmonics:
________________ ______________
| whatever | | |
| osc 1 you want |______________ volume 100% __________| filter |
|________________| | env etc. |_______
_________________ |______________| |
| pitch | |
| osc 2 sine +12 |_____________ volume 20% __________ |
|_________________| \ ______________ |
_________________ \ | ||
| pitch | \ | filter. ||
| osc 3 sine +19 |_____________ volume 10%______________\____| env etc ||
|_________________| / _/ |______________||
_________________ / | | |
| pitch | / | |________|
| osc 4 sine +24 |_____________ volume 5% ___________/ | |
|_________________| | |
_________________ / mixer
| pitch |_____________ volume 2% _____________/ maybe other
| osc 5 sine +28 | filter vca
|_________________| env etc.
|
|
\ /
V
output
Of course you don't have to follow the laws of nature, try any different frequency and see what eerie vibes you can give to your sounds - from a universal parallel dimension were our laws of physics do not comply.
If you have a more common 3 oscillator synth like a minimmoog, novation nova, Waldorf Blofeld etc. you can add only 2 more overtone notes - either G, C, E...experiment see what gives the best result.
Some stuff to check:
Give different volumes to different oscs..use keytracking, randomize the volume etc. It should be barely noticeable, slightly within the human hearing range. Let the volume of each oscillator gradually go down, the lower ones louder, the higher ones softer.
If possible give each oscillator or at least the overtone ones its own VCA envelope, higher pitches overtones have shorter sustain/release then the lower ones.
Try different waveforms, maybe even for the different partial oscillators: A sinewave might be more suited to the high overtones, a soft square to the low- but it can also be the other way around.
To finish it off add an almost unnoticeable amount of noise to blend everything together in a nice organic soup.
If you have a pitchshifter that can do more then 1 tone at the same time (Harmonic pitchshifter or whatever these things are called) - you can set the pitches to the overtone series and put the dry/wet mix really low so you can barely hear it but it does effect the sound.
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/ /
By Prof.Dr.Emiel EmmerEend University of Texel. / /
\_/
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/ _` | / _` | | | | |/ _` |/ _ \ | __/ _ \
| (_| | | (_| | |_| | | (_| | __/ | || (_) | . .
\__,_| \__, |\__,_|_|\__,_|\___| \__\___/ .
|___/
_ _ _ _ _
| |_ _ ___(_) __| | __| |_ __ ___ __ _ _ __ ___ (_)_ __ __ _
| | | | |/ __| |/ _` | / _` | '__/ _ \/ _` | '_ ` _ \| | '_ \ / _` |
| | |_| | (__| | (_| | | (_| | | | __/ (_| | | | | | | | | | | (_| |
|_|\__,_|\___|_|\__,_| \__,_|_| \___|\__,_|_| |_| |_|_|_| |_|\__, |
|___/
. _____ . __________/|___ .
. _______/ \____ / / __/
____/\ /____ \____/ _____/---- . .
\___' \ /_____ __________/ /_ \__ .
__ __ _ \ \ _________\/ \________\
\ \ / \
___ __ ____\ \ ____________________________/ ( |___/|___
\ \________ \ \__|____/ / ___/
. \ \ . \_____________/--
. / / \ .
O O O | /____\ /\ /\ . . O O O O O O
_________|_|_|____\ |____| /__\___________/__\____________|_|_|_|_|_|_
O || || | ^|
O | || || ________| |
| || || /\ ____ \ |
|| || / \__|+|___\|
|| || | | . . . .||
|| || |__|________||
By Dr. Z. van Zerval
I. The lucid dreamer
Lucid dreaming - the act of dreaming while in a state of awareness ā is a skill that can be practiced, improved, and mastered. A lucid dreamer has the ability to intervene in dreams, leading to an expansion of the outer limits of his or her consciousness. Lucid dreaming has formed an integral part of the belief systems of aboriginal groups such as the Nabesna, Atna, Wetsuwetāin and DĆ©nĆ©s of Northern Canada, for centuries. At the heart of their customs is the belief that dreams are more than mere individual experiences; rather, they belong to the community, and dream wisdom is passed on from generation to generation. [1] With some practice, a passive dream-state can easily be transformed into an active extension of waking life, where everything becomes possible. Through lucid dreaming, one can navigate and explore the infinite depths of perceptions and reality. It is also super fun! Here are some tips to achieve daily boundless mind adventures.
II. How to lucid dream
1) Mnemonic induction is a method whereby lucid dreams are triggered through memory cues. It is one of the most effective techniques to practice lucid dreaming. The first step involves identifying āreality cuesā. This can be done anywhere and anytime, in both waking- and dream states of consciousness. A famous technique is the digital clock test. To perform this exercise, stare at a digital clock for a few seconds (eg. a golden digital casio watch will do the trick), look away, and look back at the clock and ask yourself: am I dreaming? If the numbers appear normal, then you are probably awake. In dreams, numbers typically appear jumbled or scrambled (or do weirder things like recite a verse from Danteās Inferno in Uzbek). Try to do this exercise several times during your waking-day (like at your boring day-job) and in your dreams. Another fresh trick is the mirror test. In dreams, images reflected in a mirror are typically nebulous and tend to morph rapidly. The same applies to text, whether a book or a street sign; letters and words rarely stay together or remain consistent in dreams.
After some practice, you will become an expert at spotting these classic ādream anomaliesā and distinguishing between waking- and dream states. Bringing awareness to your dream state through mnemonic tricks will allow you to lucid dream. Donāt worry if you donāt succeed at first, lucid dreaming takes practice. Once youāve joined the ranks of the international society of lucid dreamers, let the adventures unravel!
2) Dream journaling is a good way to improve your lucid dreaming skills by recording your observations and results from all your mnemonic experiments. Also, writing down everything you can remember from your dreams, even when it is only a vague or ambiguous idea (eg. a color, a feeling, an object), will enhance your chances of lucid dreaming. This is because dream journaling reinforces your dream existence through the very act of recording it, fostering the development of lucid-dreaming skills. It also allows you to keep track of progress. After you start lucid dreaming on a regular basis, one major challenge is retaining control over the lucid dream. Often, (especially if you are a beginner) upon triggering, lucid dreams quickly spiral out of control and the dreamer wakes up, which can be disappointing. But donāt give up! Record every progress made and develop your own tricks and tips to lucid dreaming.
3) External triggers such as sound and light can help trigger lucid dreaming. For example, programming sounds to match the frequencies at which your brain operates during REM sleep, including dream-state frequencies (between 4 and 8 hz) can help unlock lucid dreams (see article on binaural beats in this SWCZ issue). Lights are also effective lucid dreaming triggers. By programming a light to turn on during REM sleep (when dreams typically occur), this light may ātranslateā in the dream in a different form (for example, an external light may appear as shimmer over water or as a fire in the dream). Once you make the connection between the external trigger and the dream, you become lucid and gain the ability to control and intervene in your dreams.
Hot tips:
Sources:
[1] Marie-FranƧoise GuĆ©don, āLa pratique du rĆŖve chez les DĆ©nĆ©s septentrionauxā, (1994), 18 RĆŖver la culture 2, UniversitĆ© Laval, p. 76
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/ _ \ __| '_ \| |/ _ \| '_ \| |/ _` | '_ \
| __/ |_| | | | | (_) | |_) | | (_| | | | |
\___|\__|_| |_|_|\___/| .__/|_|\__,_|_| |_|
|_|
_ _
_ __ ___ _ _ ___(_) ___ ___ ___ __ _| | ___ ___
| '_ ` _ \| | | / __| |/ __| / __|/ __/ _` | |/ _ \/ __|
| | | | | | |_| \__ \ | (__ \__ \ (_| (_| | | __/\__ \
|_| |_| |_|\__,_|___/_|\___| |___/\___\__,_|_|\___||___/
/\
__/ \
__/ o Aksum
| \
| o Mek'ele
/ \
/ o Gonder \_
| \_
/ \__
/ o Bahir Dar \
__/ \
/ |
| /\_/
_ / /
/ \_/ /___--_
| o Dire Dawa
| o Addis Abeba \__
_| ---____--
/_ /
\ ___/
\ __--
\__ ______--
| __ ___/
\_____ __/ \____/
\__ __/
\___/
There is something unique with a lot of ethiopian music - it has a tantalizing effect on the human soul. Its full of melancholy and possesses a peculiar mystifying enchanting undertone. Ancient and otherworldly, taking you to other places. Due to its mysterious nature traditional ethiopian music flowed into a more jazzy style with ease - in the 1960s ETHIOJAZZ was born, one of the coolest music styles in the world.
Ethiopia is big and therefore we can't really talk about one all encompassing music style - there are many regions with their own distinct forms but generally we see that ethiopian music uses a pentatonic scale. This means that there are 5 notes in a scale.
A system of four pentatonic scales is used - these scales are called kiƱits:
_____________________________________________________________________
| |Db | |Eb | | | Gb| | Ab| | Bb| | | Db| | Eb| | | Gb| | Ab| | Bb|
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| |C# | |D# | | | F#| | G#| | A#| | | C#| | D#| | | F#| | G#| | A#|
| |___| |___| | |___| |___| |___| | |___| |___| | |___| |___| |___|
| | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| C | D | E | F | G | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | A | B
|___|_____|___|___|_____|_____|____|___|_____|___|___|_____|_____|___
|_________ next octave ___________|
C Db. F G Ab
A scale from the Gonder & Wollo regions - that is often used in songs with historical subjects. The tears will flow like waterfalls - an intense emotional mode to squeeze out feelings you thought you never had. Almost like a musical therapist. My all time favorite scale. Also very jazzy.
C D E G A
The Tizita scale stands for 'longing' a certain melancholia - there is not really an english word for it - The words tesknota in Polish or sehnsucht in German come close. The Saharan Tuareg Assouf scale is similar...a very 'Bluesy' scale.
C E F G B
This is a more uplifting and less melancholic scale then Ambassel and Tizita. But it still has a very modest, subdued feel of melancholy. A very pensive and sensual scale.
C Db F Gb A
Almost microtonal in nature this is the most authentic of Ethiopian scales, it has a more 'celebrational' feel to it. But like all Ethiopian scales, underneath its celebral nature it can also have a devotional sacred attitude, reminding us of ancient sites or what we percieve in the west as 'rudi v alentino 1920s desert movie music'
This above is all a ***very*** basic briefing on ethiopian music, hopefully to spark your interest - Just sit behind a keyboard and jam out on these scales - its a lot of fun! if you want to know more, like the different variations and of each mode you can read (PDF):
Ezra Abate's Ethiopian KiƱit: Analysis of the Formation and Structure of the Ethiopian Scale System
SW
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/ _` | |/ _ \ \/ / _` | '_ \ / _` |/ _ \ '__|
| (_| | | __/> < (_| | | | | (_| | __/ |
\__,_|_|\___/_/\_\__,_|_| |_|\__,_|\___|_|
_ _ _ _
_ __ ___ | |__ ___ | |_ _ __ (_) ___| | __
| '__/ _ \| '_ \ / _ \| __| '_ \| |/ __| |/ /
| | | (_) | |_) | (_) | |_| | | | | (__| <
|_| \___/|_.__/ \___/ \__|_| |_|_|\___|_|\_\
____
/ \
/ \
| \
| __ __ |
/ / \ +
| ( O O _| |
\ \ / +
| | \ |
\ | /
\ _ /\
\ / \
\__/ \
\____\_
/ \
/ \
/ +
/ / \
/ / \
/ / / \
/ / / / \
|\ / / / / \ \
||\ / / / / ) )
/||_/____/ / / / /
\ | / / / /
\_ | / / / /
------_____ / +------/ / +___/
\ ----/ \ \ \
\ | \\\\
\ | \\\
\ |
\ ____ |
\ \ | |
\ \ | |
\_____\ | |
\ \ | |
\ /|| \
/ | \ \
| | \ \
\ | \ \
\| \ \__
\ |
\ |
/___|
An interview with Alexander Robotnick send in by Panos Pandis
let's start with the lyrics of his classic 'Problemes D'Amour':
Les Yeux que tu regardes
J'ai peur qu'ils semblent pas humains
La main que tu caressesm
tu sais qu'elle n' a pas l'exacte chaleur, aua
Aua! C'est le cri d'un robot souffrant d'amour aua
Aua! Meme sans ses larmes il pleure toujours aua
La bouche qui veux t'embrasser
Tu vas bien t'apercevoir qu'elle n'a pas de gout, aua
Aua! C'est le crie d'un robot souffrant d'amour, aua
Aua! MĆŖme sans ses larmes il pleure toujours, aua
Mais l'amour n'a pas de rĆØgles
Ća reste le mĆŖme dans les siĆØcles
La nuit je ne ronfle pas
Et le matin mon haleine n'est pas mauvaise
Aller, je t'invite chez moi ce soir
J'ai pas de toilette, pas de cuisine mais viens quand mĆŖme, aua.
Aua! C'est le crie d'un robot souffrant d'amour, aua
Aua! MĆŖme sans ses larmes il pleure toujours, aua
J'aimerais tellement faire l'amour avec toi
MĆŖme si on me juge vachement mĆ©canique, aua.
Aua! C'est le crie d'un robot souffrant d'amour, aua
Aua! MĆŖme sans ses larmes il pleure toujours, aua
Mais l'amour n'a pas de rĆØgles
Ća reste le mĆŖme dans les siĆØcles
La nuit je ne ronfle pas
Et le matin mon haleine n'est pas mauvaise
(Lyrics of Alexander Robotnicks' Problemes d'Amour -
Maurizio Dami 1983 Firenze Italy)
//////////
MAURIZIO DAMI, aka Alexander Robotnick, aka the TB-303 wizard.
His iconic hit "ProblĆØmes D'amour", a flop according to him, since "it only sold 10.000 copies", had a huge influence on the Chicago and Detroit scene in the early 80's.
Maurizio did not start producing until his early thirties. In fact he began learning jazz guitar at the age of 27. Knowing that it was unlikely to become a professional guitarist at that age and having already been exposed to the sounds of Kraftwerk et al, he turned to electronic music instead.
In case you need a refresher or you are unfortunate enough to never have heard any of MAURIZIO's music, here are some representative tracks:
Alexander Robotnic's signature track. Produced using a TB-303, a TR-808, a Korg Mono/Poly, a guitar and lyrics by himself.
Some say that this track is probably Robotnick's second biggest hit. It was originally produced as the sound track to a theatrical play.
A fairly new project by MAURIZIO and LUDUS PINSKY (Lapo Lombardi). A live performance with full analog equipment featuring LUDUS handmade modular synthesisers.
PANOS met with MAURIZIO in Firenze Italy and had a long chat about
music, synthesisers and some totally unrelated stuff.
My father and my mother knew how to play the piano. So when I was a child there was a pianoforte in my house. Back then every time I would play the piano my father would yell at me to stop, because, as I understood later, I had a curiosity for all the odd intervals, as they sounded more interesting to me. I was playing a note and then a sharp 5th and then a sharp 2nd etc. So I did not think about music for many years but then in the 70's I went to Morocco with some friends by auto-stop (hitch hiking), all the way from Italy. One afternoon I was in the Marrakech square, in a little, lets say coffee shop. Old people would go there to smoke weed and the trick was that after you inhaled from the pipe you would try to blow the smoke as far as you could. It was like a game, the one who would go the furthest would win a free pipe, the worst of all would have to pay for all the others. These people had spend the last twenty years of their life doing this. So I joined them with a friend of mine and in front of us there would be two people, one playing a socra, a primitive oboe from Morocco and the other one playing a hand drum. And you know, smoking this weed for an afternoon a day, playing this game with old people and listening to this music, every next day I would still hear the music in my head. And one week later I still had this music in my head. And I would start to add different instruments, or play with my mind only the bass sounds or the drums or make some chords. So I said to myself, ok I can make music now, because if I can make music in my head then I can also make music outside of it. That is how I started and I started with a guitar because at the time the most affordable instrument was the guitar. I got a second or third hand guitar. By that time I wasn't very young, it was 77', I was already 27. One year later I went to a popular school in Florence to learn music and I learned modal music, popular jazz music. And this is how I still compose music.
I don't come from a wealthy family, for me most of the time it was hard to buy these synthesisers. In the late 70's and early 80's synthesisers where still very expensive, you needed to work for six months maybe to be able to afford one. I started with a Casio keyboard, the kind of stuff for kids and then came the TB-303, the 606 and then the 808 that I exchanged with an amplifier because I was a guitarist at that time.
No, honestly, no. I think it is important to have an analogue synthesiser, at least one, in your studio. But, an analogue drum machine, why? I think there is no difference between a sample of an 808 and an 808. You can not really listen it. Maybe if you make something really obscure where the 808 plays a big role and you can listen to the very subtle difference between one hit and another... and then the 808 has no shuffle and this is not good for me, for my music. The 909 has this possibility and is much better and I think the bass drum of the 909 is unforgettable and still relevant. For the rest you can use a plugin!
Yes I do sometimes, I like to use them to compress the bass.
When memory was added to the synthesisers, the possibility to memorize a sound, for us was like science fantasy. When it came out we where enthusiastic about it. But 30 years later I think that it is better not to save any sound. I don't save any sound. Every time I find it again, because every time there is something different, it depends on your mood it depends on the situation.
I started going to India in the 80's because I like Indian music, I go there every year. I have a couple of friends there that are into production and are also djs, I told them about my idea of a compilation of dance music by young Indian artists and they brought me in contact. Also, I met some of them while playing music in India. Sometimes they might not understand why I prefer one of their tracks over an other, but I have a vision about this project to be something that you can listen to from the beginning to the end and not just a compilation.
You can read more about the Indian TexPress here
Go local! Build an audience on your block and then on your city and then in the club you use to hang out. Don't think about the whole world immediately because the world is just the sum of little things. To me nowadays it is important to get local and build an audience that you can turn to when you are not famous anymore. Dutch musicians for example, their music was really in fashion in the early 00's when I started dj-ing, Rotterdam and music from the Netherlands and Belgium in general. Three or four years later it was not in fashion anymore because house music came back again. But these musicians had deep roots in their cities and in France etc, because they had local audiences they managed to resist and reach their next peak.
Thank you MAURIZIO!
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| '_ ` _ \ / _ \| '__/ _ \
| | | | | | (_) | | | __/
|_| |_| |_|\___/|_| \___|
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__ _ ___ ___(_|_) __ _ _ __| |_
/ _` / __|/ __| | | / _` | '__| __|
| (_| \__ \ (__| | | | (_| | | | |_
\__,_|___/\___|_|_| \__,_|_| \__|
. . . . . . .
_______
. . . . / /\ \ . . .
/\ /\ \
________ /\ /\ @ \ /\
. . /________/| \ \ \ . \ \ . .
|_________|| / / \ \ \
| |_________|| / / \ / /
. _|__ |_________|| / / \ \ -----__
. /___/| |_________|| \__/____ \ _________ \
|____|//| |_________|| \ \ / -----_____\_
/______/.| |_________|| \ \__\__ \
_______ |. . . |.| |_________|| \ ----_______ \
/ /| |. . . |.| |_________|| \ ______ _______ ____/_
/______/ | |. . . |.| |_________|| ________ /_____ / | . . . | /_____/|
| . . . | |______ |. . . |.| |_________||/ /| | . . | _| . . . |__| . . ||
| . . . |/______/| |. . . |.| |_________|/________/ | | . . |/_| . . . |__| . . ||
| . . . | . . .| | |. . . |.| |_________||. . . . | | | . . . . . . . . . . . ||
| . . . | . . .| | |. . . |.| |_________||. . . . | | | . . . . . . . . . . . ||
| . . . | . . .| | |. . . | / |_________||. . . . | / /| . . . . . . . . . . . ||
|_______|______|/ |______|/ |_________||________|/ |_________________________|/
/ / /
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
___________ ________ / _____ ________
/ /| / /| / /| / /|
__________/ |________ /________/ | / /____/ | /_______/ |_______________
. . . . . |/________/| |. . . . | | |. . | | |. . . | / /|
. . . . . ||_______| | |. . . . | | / |. . | | ____|. . . |/______________/ |
. . . . . ||_______| | |. . . . | |- - -|. . | | /____|. . . ||______________| |
. . . . . ||_______| | |. . . . | | /|. . | | |. . |. . . ||______________| |
. . . . . ||_______| | |. . . . | | |. . | | |. . |. . . ||______________| |
. . . . . ||_______| | |. . . . | | / |. . | | |. . |. . . ||______________| |
__________||_______|/ |________|/ |____|/ |____|_______||______________|/
/
___________________ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
/| ______________ __________ _____________
_________________/ | / /| / /| / /|
. . . . . . . . | | /_____________/ | /_________/ |/____________/ |
. . . . . . . . | | |_____________| | |. . . . | ||. . . . . . | |
. . . . . . . . | | |_____________| | |. . . . | ||. . . . . . | |
. . . . . . . . | | |_____________| | |. . . . | ||. . . . . . | |
. . . . . . . . | O O O O|_____________| O O O O O O|. . . . | ||. . . . . . | |
. . . . . . . . |O OO O OO |_____________|O O OOO O O |. . . . | / |. . . . . . | |
OOOOOOOOOOOoooOoooOoooOOooOOOooOOoooOOOOOooOOOooOOoooOOOOooOOooooOOOOoooOOOOoOOOOOOO
OoooooOOoOooOOooOOOoooOOOOOoooOOOOOOooOOOooOOOOOOOOoOOOoOoooOoooOOOOOooOOOooOOOoOOOO
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Neural Oscillation Brain Wave modulation with
_ _ _ _ _
| |__ (_)_ __ __ _ _ _ _ __ __ _| | | |__ ___ __ _| |_ ___
| '_ \| | '_ \ / _` | | | | '__/ _` | | | '_ \ / _ \/ _` | __/ __|
| |_) | | | | | (_| | |_| | | | (_| | | | |_) | __/ (_| | |_\__ \
|_.__/|_|_| |_|\__,_|\__,_|_| \__,_|_| |_.__/ \___|\__,_|\__|___/
______
\
______\
\___ ______\
\______ | _____
\______ ______\
\ __-------------____ ______\
/ \
/ _________ \
/ / \ \
_/ / \ \__
/ | ___/ \ | \
/ | __/ \| \
/\ /\ | || _ _ || /\
/ \ / \ || -___- -___- || / \ /\ /\
____/ \ / \ /\ || || _/ \ / \ / \_______
\ / \/ | | \ \/ \/
\/ / | ___ | \
/ | | \
/ ( _____ ) \
/ \ --- / \
_______/ \ / \_______
/ \___________/ \
A Binaural beat is not a beat from a drummachine or drumkit - it is, quite simply, a remarkable auditory illusion that occurs when you play two different sinewave frequencies in your right and left ear seperataly on headphones.
Somehow your brain will percieve the interference pattern of these two frequencies. A new frequency that is the substraction of the two different frequencies.
An example: On headphones, in the right ear we play a pure sinewave tone of 600 Hz. In the left ear we play a pure sinewave tone of 605 Hz.
------
| 5 Hz |
_--_ ------ _--_
_- -_ _ ______ o _- -_ _
-_- / ____ \ o -_-
600 HZ ___ / / \ \ ____ 605 HZ
|_\ /|,_ ,_ |\ /___|
/ | | ( | | \
\| __ |/
____/\____/\_____
/ \
Now we deduct these two frequencies:
605 hz - 600 hz = 5 hz
Our brain will perceive a 5 Hz tone. This is well below our normal auditory perception range of 20 hz - 20 kHz.
It happens that 5 Hz is also a brain wave frequency.
What are brain waves???
The brain operates at certain frequencies - All kinds of mental states operate on different neural oscillation frequencies - dreaming, focusing, deep relaxation, flow, hypnosis, various forms of altered states of consciousness, deep sleep etc.
It is theorized that we can influence these frequencies with external stimuli - like light & sound. The brain's neural oscillations can be 'entrained' to follow the frequencies of these stimuli - like the interference patterns we can perceive created with binaural beats.
So these brain waves/neural oscillations operate on the following frequencies:
DELTA WAVES 0.2 - 3 HZ Basically the lowest brain wave possible - near the threshold of non existence. This is what you start out with in the womb. Every night you go in this state when you sleep. The Delta wave is associated with slow-wave sleep - the deepest stage of NREM (Non Rapid Eye movement) sleep.
THETA WAVES 4 - 7 HZ Asociated with deep relaxation, drowsiness, hypnotic states, dreaming. Colourfull visions inside your mind.
ALPHA WAVES 7.5 - 12.4 Hz Ascociated with a relaxed mental state.
BETA WAVES 12.5 - 30 Hz ascociated with focus and problem solving
So in theory if we create any of these frequencies with our binaural beat technique and play them for a while on headphones our brain should entrain to it and we can make ourselves feel relaxed, drowsey, dreamy etc. This is ofcourse quite whiseywashey science but fun nevertheless!
Lets say you want to make some THETA WAVES to get a bit drowsey, or even better put it in your music to influence the listeners brain:
We need two sound sources that can produce pure sinewave tones and these sources need to be panned hard left and right. So a mixer comes in handy to do the panning stuff.
As for the sound sources we can use two synthesizers, or a DAW, sampler, tone generators, whatever can make a pure sine-waves. If your synth can make triangle waves you can use the filter to soften it to a sinus.
_--_
/\ _ -
/ \ Lowpass Filter --> __- - -
_____/ \ / that sh**** - -
\/ - _ -
Now the difficult thing in this whole venture is to measure the frequency of each synth. We have to know the exact frequencies.
There are probably some hardware devices that can measure the exact frequency of a tone, some modular oscilloscopes can do it like the Mordax DATA or ED702 Synth-a-Scope, maybe some tuners?
You might have a synthesizer were you can exactly program the frequency you want, but this is one of those things that seems super easy on paper but more difficult in reality.
Some DAW's have a build in frequency analyser - we can do it in Ableton for example with the TUNER (you can find it in the Audio Effects map):
put the Tuner on the channels that have the soundsource - click on CT to set it to HZ mode. Now you can view the exact frequency in HZ coming in.
We want to get some Theta waves, these operate roughly between 4 and 7 Hz...we have to tune the two sound sources so the difference will be within that range. The frequencies can not be lower then 1500 Hz and should be within the audible hearing range.
Lets say we take 64.5 HZ and 70.5 HZ - This should result into a 6 Hz interference binaural beat.
Pan one soundsource to the hard left and the other one to the hard right. Put on some headphones, check out your binaural beat and start experimenting with neural oscillation brain wave modulation in your music!
An easier way to skip the whole measuring process is to use a tone generator where you can exactly enter your frequencies.
Like this online wave generater:
http://onlinetonegenerator.com/
enter any frequency you want (below 1500 and within the audible human hearing range) and save it to your computer. Enter another frequency so its difference is within the brain wave frequency range you want to use. Save that one too and import both audio files to your DAW, pan them hard left & right and now you can start mucking about with them.
Remember:
//
_ ___
| | _____ _____ ( _ ) ___ __ _ _ _ ___ ___ _ __ ___
| |/ _ \ \ / / _ \ / _ \/\ / __|/ _` | | | |/ __/ _ \ '__/ __|
| | (_) \ V / __/ | (_> < \__ \ (_| | |_| | (_| __/ | \__ \
|_|\___/ \_/ \___| \___/\/ |___/\__,_|\__,_|\___\___|_| |___/
.
. ____ .
. - -
( ) ( )_ .
. _ \ / / \
____ /_\ \ / // \\
/ \ // \\ ''_// //
/ \ // \\/ __/
___ \_ / \ \\ \ / . .
/ \ \ /_ \\ / /
/ \ \____/ \ \ \ \
| | \ / \ \ \
| \ / |_____ / / \ \ \
____| //____ \ / /\ \ / /
/ \ /\|', '\|_____/ /__\ \ / / .
\ \-------| [] | ___/ /__/\\ / \\
/\ \_____ \___/ / \__/ "' \ /
/ /\_______\ | \ \
\/\ | / / \ \
) / / \ \ . .
/ /\/_______/ . \ \
/ / /| / \/
/ / / / / / .
/ / / / / /
/ _/ / / _/_ / . . .
/_/ / /_/ /
/_/
___
\ /\/\\\//\\ _____/ \____ /\/\\\/\\ /\/\/\\/\\/\/\/\ /\/\/\
\ \ \\\ \ / \ \ \\ \\ / \/ \ / \/ \ / \ \ \
\ \ \\\ \/________________\ \ \ \ \\ / \ \/ / \ / \ \ \
__\__\_\\\___| __ __ __ |___\_\_\_\\ /______\__/___/______/______\_\_\
|| || || |||| | |__| | ||__| || | ||||| ||||| ||| | || || |||| |||||
|_______|__|_____|
Love and Saucers is a new feature film documentary from Brad Abrahams, who made the 'Swansong of Skunkape' documentary a few years ago.
It is the strange story of David Huggins, a 74 year-old man who claims to have had a lifetime of encounters with otherworldly beings - including an interspecies romance with an extra-terrestrial woman (with whom he lost his virginity to). As a form of self-therapy, he chronicled it all in surreal oil paintings, few of which have ever been seen.
Filmed in an intimate, nonjudgemental style, the film lets David tell his story, and in turn lets the audience decide what is fact, fiction, and everything in-between.
Watch it on loveandsaucers.com
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_ . _ . _ _ _ _ _
| |__ ___ | |_ ___| |_ _ _ __| (_) ___ | |_(_)_ __ ___
| '_ \ / _ \| __| / __| __| | | |/ _` | |/ _ \ | __| | '_ \/ __|
| | | | (_) | |_ \__ \ |_| |_| | (_| | | (_) | | |_| | |_) \__ \
|_| |_|\___/ \__| |___/\__|\__,_|\__,_|_|\___/ \__|_| .__/|___/
|_|
_____________ |
| . | . | |
|. . |. . | |
|__ . |. . | /\o/\
| .\__ | . | ''
/\ |_____\|_____/| _______ _________
_ \ \ _| |\ /.| / \ | ___
| \ \ \ / \ . | \ / .| / __ __\ | / - o o
|/\\ ||/ /\ \ . | / o | \ _ \ \ | / / o o
____\\ /_/_ \/_ | /. .| _| | _ _\ | /_/_ o o
/ ____ / ___ \__|______|_ \\ |// \ / / / ___
/ / \/ _/___\ \___________ \ \_____/ / / ____
| | | ___|/ _____. | \___\ \___/ /
| / | |.'\'.||.'\'.| | | | / o o o o
|/ _____________________ | ___/
|\ . . . . . . . . . \ \______\ \ o o o o
| \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \_____________________________
| \ \ \ \ - - - \ \ \ \ ________________________
| \ - - - \ \ \ - - - \ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \
\___\____________________\ \\ \\\ \ \ \\\ \ \ \\ \ \
\|------------------------|
\________________________/
Back in the 1970s/80s and well into the 90s hifi systems came with cool graphic Equalizers. Do not disregard them as useless junk, these can be powerful sound shaping devices. Put them behind your synthesizer, drummachine, in an effects chain or wherever and tweak those frequency bands. With some good finger action you can even create off worldly filter sweep effects.
Empower your music with a "different set of hands for your mind". If you wear gloves your instruments will feel different. Satin gloves will make your instruments feel more delicate - leather cyberpunk gloves will result in a more stronger powerfull though experience. This will ofcourse affect the course of your music.
You want to drone out on your synth/keyboard but it doesn't have a hold/latch function and you need your hands to tweak the parameters & FX? There are many ways - tape, toothpicks, tablecloth clamps to hold down drone notes. Best is a thin but sturdy piece of long rectangular cardboard so you can fold it to hold down more then one note.
A real low budget "sound absorption silent recording booth" to get rid of excessive reflections and ambient noise/hums when recording with a microphone. Take your microphone, recorder, laptop or whatever under the blanket in your bed. This will create a makeshift but probably useful soundproof recording space.
Guitar stands also make great vertical mixer stands for on your desk. you will have room to put something else on the horizontal space were the mixer used to be.
Guitar amp modellers sound great on synths - instant lo-fi minimal wave raw vibes. These FX boxes simulate the sound of mic'd up valve guitar amps and most of the time have some cool FX too - guitar orientated stuff like autowah compressor sustainers etc. which sound very cool on synths but also on drummachines. These were all the rage 10 years ago, crap like the Behringer V-AMP's (that looks like a cow dung), Korg AmpWorx, Line6 PODs, ZOOM G-series etc.etc. can sometimes be bought second hand for next to nothing.
try some cheap piezo discs from a musical greeting card and solder the wires to a mini jack connector and use your field recorders mic input. Stick the piezo disc to a table, window, singing bowl, fish tank or wherever you like and enjoy some eerie sounds! You might want to turn up the recorder gain a bit, causing noise to enter the recording but that is just part of the magic sounds you will get.
_ _ _ _ _
_ __ ___ __ _ _ __| | _ __(_)_ _____ _ __ __| | ___| | |_ __ _
| '_ \ / _ \/ _` | '__| | | '__| \ \ / / _ \ '__| / _` |/ _ \ | __/ _` |
| |_) | __/ (_| | | | | | | | |\ V / __/ | | (_| | __/ | || (_| |
| .__/ \___|\__,_|_| |_| |_| |_| \_/ \___|_| \__,_|\___|_|\__\__,_|
|_|
_ _ __
___ _ __ __ _ __| | | ___ ___ / _|
/ __| '__/ _` |/ _` | |/ _ \ / _ \| |_
| (__| | | (_| | (_| | | __/ | (_) | _|
\___|_| \__,_|\__,_|_|\___| \___/|_|
_ _ _ _
_ __ ___ _ _ ___(_) ___ | |_| |__ (_)_ __ __ _ ___
| '_ ` _ \| | | / __| |/ __| | __| '_ \| | '_ \ / _` / __|
| | | | | | |_| \__ \ | (__ | |_| | | | | | | | (_| \__ \
|_| |_| |_|\__,_|___/_|\___| \__|_| |_|_|_| |_|\__, |___/
|___/
,__, ,__,
| | | |
| | | |
| | | | ____
| | | | ___ | | ____
| | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | |
______________| |___| |_______| | | |___| |___
|
__ ___ ____ //|\\ ____ ____ ___
/ \ ___ ////|\\\\
//|\\ /////|\\\\\ ____ ____
\___///|\\\___/ __ \___//////|\\\\\\___/
o_________o /\ o_______________o /\ ____ _ _
| ____ | /\ / \ | _______ | / \
| |__| | / \ / \ | | | | | /\ / \
| |__| | / \ / \ | |__|__| |/ \ / \
| |__| |/ \/ \ | | | | / \/ \
A few semi ill-informed lines on music gear manufacturing in Guangdong Province of China, by our special reporter BoeufStroganoff.
We've all heard about South China being the Factory of the world, the Mecca of electronics, the Vatican of consumer good, the Wall Street of plastic and metal processing,... You get the idea. But aside from these lousy stereotypes, what's the deal ? Is the bad picture usually depicted about work conditions any true ? How do you get something manufactured up there ? What is life like in the place that makes all our lovely music toys and tools ? All those questions won't get any answers, but chillax, pour yourself some spiced-up hot wine, open your shakras, and here we go.
There is a massive probability that most items you own come from the Pearl River Delta. This ancient name is even more relevant today, as all cities surrounding that delta do indeed touch each other, like pearls threaded on a necklace. This area is forming de-facto a megacity of more than 120 million people and very soon, all the subway systems for each cities will be connected. You might want to take something to read if you ride the 130km subway trip from Hong Kong island all the way up to Guangzhou. Here's a schematic map of the place :
o Guangzhou
\ \
Foshan o \ \
/ \
\ | o Dongguan
(\ |/
_\\/ \__/\
\\\ \ _____
\' ~~~ \ __/
Zhongshan o _/ ~~ ~~~ \ \_ ~~~ ~~~
/ ~~~ / __o Shenzhen\_ ~~~~
(_/) ~~~ ~~ \/ / /_ \___/ ~~~ ~~
Zhuhai o / ~~~~ ___/ \
\ /__ o Hong Kong ~~ ~~~ ~~~
/| o Macau ___/__ / ~~~ ~~ ~~~~
/ | / /__ / \__/ ~~~ ~~ ~~~
\ \/ ' ~ ~~ ~~~ ~~~~ ~~~
__________/ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~~
~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~
Let's zoom into the Shenzhen area for a bit. 30 years ago the local water buffaloes and fishermen saw their place designated as a Special Economic Zone. Some dudes from Beijing clicked on the map like in SimCity, foreign capital poured in, and factories mushroomed from the rice paddies in the tens of thousands. Then millions of peeps moved in from all over China, creating the most cosmopolitan city of Chinese culture. It's cool because you don't need to travel all around china to try the different cuisines, it's all there. Because initially nobody was born in that place, the people of Shenzhen enjoy a strange sense of freedom. Eccentricity is not frowned upon, and the definition of what is socially permitted is much more flexible than anywhere else in China. When your family is 2000km away, there is less pressure to comply to social constructs. No heads will turn if you're shopping at the supermarket while cross dressing in a tight leather string and dominatrix boots.
There is a few reasons to visit Shenzhen, especially if you like absurd surreal holidays. As a hardcore synth DIYer you would probably go to Huaqiang market, the now well-known electronic component neighbourhood. This place is made out of multi-story malls full of millions of booth selling electronic components. But it's also an entire ecosystem with a fauna and flora endemic to this place, feeding on the only available resource : ultra-spicy instant noodles, corn cobs, and hardcore cigarettes.
After school hours, many kids join-in and wait for their parents to be done with their adult weirdness. Dressed like modern samurai's they are always at war, running around with swords made of integrated-circuit packaging tubes, discarded resistor boxes as armour, and helmets crafted with diode's reels. Close your eyes, imagine a deep winter wasteland. You can hear them, shouting like fierce warriors, you can hear the cracking sound of fresh snow under their steps as they rush to burn the enemy's village. It's of course just bubble wrap on the floor and the air-con jacked to the max because it's freaking hot outside, but what a childhood!
This place can be overwhelming. If you're a bit too shy to ask for the price of these cool switches or this nice LED matrix, you can always go right outside and get some much needed sparkling hoppy beverages. A couple of those will work like a charm. Now you're quite mellow and tipsy enough to appreciate this wonderful environment and engage in the occult art of deal making with weird gestures and pocket calculators. While you're there, just ponder a bit about the economy of the world that is happening in front of your very eyes. Everywhere you look, packages are being sent around the world. It's almost like every time your hear that typical schrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitchhhh sound of wrapping tape being pulled, the stock market goes up! But I digress.
After fiddling with modular synths I realized that, as awesome as it is, the complexity of having millions of modules in a big case was not really helping my musical output. I wanted a minimal set-up, and a way to turn this austere format into an expressive instrument, especially for the cool new digital modules. So why not trying the adventure of manufacturing a device/case just like that ?
Let's bypass the design process, irrelevant here. But once you're fairly confident that it will work, it's time to find some cool people that will help you building it. You need to find two factories. One for the metal, and one for the circuit boards.
After firing a bunch of pre-formatted emails to weird companies having retro flash-based websites, some will reply. After this initial contact, you must perform the traditional seduction dance together, to see if they can do what you want, and if they want to work for your puny project. You're not exactly the perfect client for them, since you won't need to make 10.000 piece of your cool gear.
To improve your chances of making a deal, why not avoid saying the total truth about the exact numbers ? They kind of expect you to do it anyway, so make it look like a big order ! Once you have successfully hooked a few of them you can now send schematics of your design for a precise quote. Some will not answer, some will be ridiculously expensive. But there will be like 2 or 3 of them you could work with.
Now comes the best part : Going up there, meet them in person, and check if the factory looks cool and uses eco-friendly soap in their toilets. It usually goes like this : You arrange a meeting with the guy you emailed with, somewhere right after the border or at the airport. After an hour of driving on urban highways and realizing communications in this customized English might be more difficult than envisioned, you will get to a gated compound filled with hundred of small factories. Your cell phone case, hispter-bike's rubber tire, bamboo furniture, flamingo neon sign, and all your LED stuff come from a place like this.
Factories come in all flavours. Even if you can determine quite quickly that you might not work with them, it is always an adventure to see the conditions and the way the workers are doing their thang. In the worst ones you will see dudes smoking over vats of highly flammable chemicals while wearing underwear only, because the boss think that air-con is too expensive. Some of those visits feel like they are very well rehearsed, North Korean style. Workers fake it to make the floor look super busy and professional. Sometimes you can even get a glimpse of fear when their eyes accidentally look at yours, because the boss forbids interacting with visitors. Go with your instinct, go for the ones you can truly communicate with and where the workers are smiling and laughing in your presence. The PCB factory I ended up working with has a neat program to help their workers own a car and an apartment. They even send their staff to university to keep them interested and happy. You'll see the worse and the best.
It is also fun to check the "sample room", a place full of shelves where you can see products previously manufactured by the place. It gives you a lot of ideas. You can also recognise some products from other brands. Ha ! So this famous audio compressor brand is doing things here ! Oooooooh but I recognise this drum-machine enclosure !
After the visit, tradition has it to take you to dinner in the compound and get you drunk on booze that the EU labs would rather classify as industrial window-cleaning chemical. But close your eyes and take it in like a man. The price of your product might suffer if you don't comply.
I must mention here that my first visit to a factory and what eventually led to this project, is totally linked to this very cyberzine. Because of an article in the second issue of Shadow Wolf, I was able to meet a cool Swiss dude travelling to this part of the world for work. He took me to a LED factory he was working with, and we had a blast. I still fondly remember the exoticness of being constantly burped in the face by the factory owner, downing beers and baiju on little plastic chairs like there is no tomorrow. It was hard to remain serious, but that boss gave me plenty of very good advices, and my factory contact. Other memories are more bitter-sweet. Like that time rushing out of a meeting with a power-supply manufacturer without the luxury of giving them an explanation, running around the factory with a livid face. That face being a ISO9001 international standard, you'll be quickly pointed to the nearest gentlemen's (or lady's) room to release the dangerous Szechuan food / baiju mix your body was naively trying to process. But those visits are mostly fun and you'll collect many cool weird memories doing it !
Most worker spend their only day-off playing League of Legends until way too late at night, crammed in the unisex dorm provided by the factory. It's not so comfy but they can save more money staying there. I'm still not totally aware about how they fulfil some of their more primal needs, I should investigate. After spending many days with some of them, I'm glad that this experience allowed me to befriend cool people in China. Those guys really feel like they are improving their living standard for themselves and their families and are happy to move forward in their life, compared to where they came from. Of course you will always find people who think that Shenzhen industrial suburb is a hell hole, where everything is dirty and where people live shitty lives. But this conclusion is held most probably by people who fail to see things from a worker's perspective, in a company that is not crushing them. It's not all rosy, and there's some harsh conditions, but so far there's still plenty of jobs and it is easy to leave yours and get another one next door if you'renot happy.
Then comes manufacturing time. First rule : Everything that can go wrong WILL go wrong. You must quadruple check everything, and nothing works better than photoshopping red circles on pictures, when being present physically is not possible. The factory is not fucking-up the production on purpose but there is a charming sense of clumsiness to it all. Communication-wise it is important to remember that they are not trying to rip you off. Manage your frustrations. From their perspective, the quality of their work is way ahead compared to the local competition. But they won't tell you exactly what they do, and they themselves use other subcontractors to do processes that they are not equipped for. This is usually where problems happens : because it is your baby and not theirs, they don't have the same level of quality control than you would, when stuff comes back from the subcontractor.
One cannot avoid being horrified by a trip to the region's countryside. Or what's left of it. The landscape is a never ending forest of chimneys, electric poles, bizarre pseudo Greek-looking property developments and skyscrapers lost in the middle of nowhere. Quite dramatic at night with a loud drexciyan soundtrack. A few dark rivers lay sandwiched between all this grey concrete and destroyed ruins of old villages turn to rumbles. Some very optimistic people even farm vegetables where there is a bit of space left. Those rivers look more like an open-air oil transportation system actually, so I wonder what those veggies taste like.
Industrial development is the only thing that matters and its cost is tremendous for the environment and people's health. Working hard and giving better education and life opportunities to your kids is priority number one. But the price they are willing to pay to allow that may be considered far too expensive in the future.
Their kids will probably despise the previous generation for their choices. Having a good diploma is no use if your health isn't good enough to make the best out of it. Is it because they feel like that they can always go back to the beautiful countryside of their childhood, a nice and comfy 1000 km away, that people seem to have no sacred connection with the land here ? Of course, all of this is easy to say when you come from a European background, where the same process occurred during the industrial revolution, so far away in time from now. Do we curse our ancestors who cut the forest to build coal mines and steel processing plants back then, so we can enjoy pondering about what eurorack module we want to buy next, instead of having our mind crushed by labour intensive manual work ?
Politically, things are moving forward, but it seems pointless. For example the Shenzhen prefecture, suffocating on weird chemicals, has banned PCB manufacturing industries in its area. The growing middle class wants to live in nice pollution free districts, so the pressure grows on officials to make things change. Gentrification is also going on at full steam. Understandable, the money is good. But just a little further away, in places still not affected by pollution, there are countless smaller cities, eager to cash-in on industry tax. So in this example, instead of regulating what chemicals can be used, cities who have "made it" just ban those chemicals and the problem moves on to a new area where it is perfectly fine to use them. Seen from above, polluting industries move in a similar way to bacterias in a Petri dish, leaving a corrupt land behind them. The future seems grim, so being able to work with factories that can prove the non-toxic nature of their processes is a priority. It is not something that we usually think about when we give-in to our gear addiction syndrome, but whenever you buy anything making blips and boings, remember that you are the most powerful actor of this whole chain of events. Consume with a clear and well-informed mind.
The project is now done, it works and I forgot the frustration of all the things that went wrong. It took almost 2 years from start to finish and now it's time to make some real music again ! But part of me can't wait to sit again on a plastic stool shooting anti-freeze down my hatch and exchanging google-translated jokes with some cool crazy Chinese boss. If you're interested to see what that machine ended up looking like, it's here
o o . o . . . .
_ . _ _ .
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| |/ _ \/ _` |/ _ \ \ /\ / / _ \ | __| o
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| | | | | | | (_| |\ V V /| | | | | || __/ | \__ \ (_) | |_| | |_) |
|_| |_| |_|_|\__,_| \_/\_/ |_|_| |_|\__\___|_| |___/\___/ \__,_| .__/
|_|
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/ / | | o ____ o O
/ / / ~~~_ _~~~ \ o | |
/ | / O O \ o o O
/ | / \ / \ ___
/ | / T \ o | o | |
/ | / 9 \ o | o O
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/ | \________/ / \__| ) o
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\/\/\/\ | | /\/\/\/\/\//| o ) o
\/) \/ ( _____|__(__
| | __ -) | ) --
__ | | - ~ ~~ ~ ~( ~~ -
/ \ | |- ~ o ~~~~ ~) o -
/ \/__ __|| -_ ~~~ o ~~~~ _-|
/ / --________--- || - ____________- |
/ /\ | | |
/ / / | | |
/ / / | |
// / | |
217.9 MegaBytezzz
Tracklisting:
_ _ _ _ _ _
| |_ _ __ __ _(_)_ __ | |_| |__ ___ _ _ __ _| |__ | |_ ___
| __| '__/ _` | | '_ \ | __| '_ \ / _ \| | | |/ _` | '_ \| __/ __|
| |_| | | (_| | | | | | | |_| | | | (_) | |_| | (_| | | | | |_\__ \
\__|_| \__,_|_|_| |_| \__|_| |_|\___/ \__,_|\__, |_| |_|\__|___/
|___/
TRAINS, the best hobby for every sophisticated lady and worldly gentleman. You might ride them everyday - but what do you really know about them? A person should always know the train model type he or she travels in - Transform the mundane everyday commuter honor into an exciting adventure of a lifetime.
Here are some classic trains to get your interest sparked:
--__
/
___________________/______________________________
__________________________________________________-_
_/__/ /__/__/ /____ _____ _____ __ __/\___
2 |___|_|/|___|_| | -|- | |___|_| |___|_| 1 | | -' \
|_____| |_____|/||_|_|| |_____| |_____| | | |
/ / / / / / | | | | | _|
_/__/__/__/__/__/__|__|__|___________________ -- |_|
___________________=======_________________=====_________/
\__/---------\__/ \__/-------\__/
MAT 64 NS Dutch Railways 1964 operational until 2016
The iconic dutch train of bygone years
_____
_________/ /___________________----------------_--------
__---- -------------------- ||||| ||||| |||||
/ -, ---. ________________________________________ ___ _
____--------- /___| / -- _--- ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ __
__-- / | | | - || || || || || || ||
/| / | | || |||____||____||____||____||____||____||__
/ | _ \_ | _| | - |________________________ _ ____ _ _
| | (_) |__| | |
\ | ---
\|______________________________________________________________________
/
/ _____________________________ ___ ____
/_____________----------------------- _______ __ __ _ ____
0 Series Super Express Japan Railways 1964
The first and most iconic train series of the high speed Shinkansen-lines
____------------
________________---------------| /__|__\____________
________________/_________________________/ ---____ -----___
________________________________________________________ --__ \|
____ _____ _ _ _ _ _____ ___ ___ _ \ --_ \
____| |_____| | | | | (_) (_) / /-_ /-_ (_) \ --_ \
____|___|_____|__|_|_|_|_________________________________/ -_ |
|_| |_| -|
_______________________________________________________________________|
______________________________________________________________________/
\___/ \___/ \___/ \___/
TRANS EUROPA EXPRESS TEE DB CLASS VT 11.5 BAUREIHE 601 1957
This is the train serenaded in Kraftwerk's Trance Europe Express
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/ _|_ __ ___ ___| |__ ___ _ __ __ _ ___ ___
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| _| | | __/\__ \ | | | \__ \ |_) | (_| | (_| __/
|_| |_| \___||___/_| |_| |___/ .__/ \__,_|\___\___|
|_|
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___| |__ ___ ___ ___ __ _ __ _ _ __| (_) ___
/ __| '_ \ / _ \ / __/ _ \ _____ / _` |/ _` | '__| | |/ __|
| (__| | | | (_) | (_| (_) |_____| (_| | (_| | | | | | (__
\___|_| |_|\___/ \___\___/ \__, |\__,_|_| |_|_|\___|
|___/
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/ _| ___ ___ __ _ ___ ___(_) __ _ o
| |_ / _ \ / __/ _` |/ __/ __| |/ _` |
| _| (_) | (_| (_| | (_| (__| | (_| | o
|_| \___/ \___\__,_|\___\___|_|\__,_|
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O | | o
| | _______
) ) O ) ). | | | |
( ( ( ( | | | flour |
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- . . . - . . . - . . - | | __ \ / |
- . - . . . . - . . . - -___- /_/ _\/_ |
_\__ -__ . - . . . . ._ - /_/_/_/ //| \\_____|
--\-__ ------------- /_/_/_/ \ |///
__----- __---____ /_/_/ __ ----
/ / \_\ /
/\
/ \
A new sensation in the psychedelic cuisine - a Holy trinity of powerful substances: Weed - Chocolate - Garlic
0.5 gram of your favorite weed, ground with a grinder
half a cup of High content cocoa Dark Chocolate - 85% - 99% - cut/shred
into small pieces
3 Cloves of Garlic (or more)
Herbs like a fistful of Rosemary leaves
Sea Salt
half a cup of Olive Oil
2 Cups of flour
1 cup of Lukewarm Water
1 tablespoon of yeast
Add 1 tablespoon of yeast to the lukewarm cup of water - leave for a few minutes.
Pour water and yeast mixture into bowl with the 2 cups flour.
Heat up the olive oil in a little pan, don't let it sizzle/cook only heat it up -add the ground weed and stir with the oil. Add the shredded garlic and herbs and stir.
Heat it up for a few minutes - turn off as soon as it starts sizzling.
Pour 2/3rds of this olive oil weed garlic herb mixture into the dough mixture.
Leave at least 1/3 of the oil mixture for use later in this recipe.
Add shredded chocolate pieces.
Stir and work the dough with your hands, if necessary add more flower or water to make the right dough consistency. Massage the dough for at least 5 minutes so the gluten get more flexible.
Shape the dough in a disc sized "flat bread form" about the size of a plate put it in an oven dish or tray with baking paper.
Leave in refrigerator to rise for a few hours (2 or 3 should be enough).
poke holes on the bread surface with a fork - every 2 cms / 1 inch in rows also use your finger to poke more shallow holes every 3 cm's.
Pour and spread the rest of the oil weed garlic herb mixture over the bread so it drips into the holes. Add some seasalt on top of the bread.
Preheat an oven 210 degrees celsius/410 fahrenheit
Put the Foccacia in for 20 minutes or longer if needed.
Don't eat too much - it will take some time before the psychedelic effect starts.
_ _ _
___ ___ ___ ___ _ __ | |_(_) __ _| |
/ _ \/ __/ __|/ _ \ '_ \| __| |/ _` | |
| __/\__ \__ \ __/ | | | |_| | (_| | |
\___||___/___/\___|_| |_|\__|_|\__,_|_|
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| |_ _ __(_)_ __ _ __ ___ _ _ ___(_) ___
| __| '__| | '_ \ | '_ ` _ \| | | / __| |/ __|
| |_| | | | |_) | | | | | | | |_| \__ \ | (__
\__|_| |_| .__/ |_| |_| |_|\__,_|___/_|\___|
|_|
_______________________________________
| _______________________________ o |
| / \ |
| | | |
| | _______________________ | |
| | | ___ \ / ___ | | |
| | | / \ | / / \ | | |
| | | \___/ | \ \___/ | | |
| | |________/_______\______| | |
| |_________________________________| |
| _________________________ |
| / o o \ |
|_____/ o o \_____|
-----------------------------
Balmy ambient improvisations with a deep, almost ritualistic feel. Acoustic guitars and additional self-made instruments are used, creating spheric layers of what sounds like some kind of ethereal glass strings. It might be more of a meditation- or wellness-record, but with something enigmatic about it!
(Review by Wormholio)
Like a sonic time machine that takes you to the stone age. There you jam with troglodytes in a nice upscale cave with a view on the forest treeline and by a nice little freshwater lake. A safe area. Far removed from bear or sabre-tooth tiger attacks. A littlebit simplistic at times - But the sounds are so nice and uplifting its actually very ok and you wished it went on for another 20 minutes.
SW
A collection of eight feel-good reverby tracks, which feel like a slow and soft spin into infinity. Terekkeās debut album follows a succession of EPs on L.I.E.S and a latest self-released 2015 album funnily titled ā( Ķ”Ā° ĶŹ Ķ”Ā°)ā. Very much the same deep vibe like 154's Strike album - so #*@(*#(@ ethereal and out there it seems like Terekke is some kind of vaporous mind energy being from a Star Trek TNG episode (one with Will Wheaton and the traveler in it ofcourse) Combines perfectly with any houseplant care ritual too.
(Review by Wesley Crusher)
Jugend Unsinn is the first out of two albums released by Danish minimal synth musician and film-maker (ie. punk cult movie "De skrigende halse") SĆøren Fauli, which precedes the slightly better-known but equally rare Fauli til Dauli LP (1983), released on Copenhagen's defunct Gry Records. Both albums have surprisingly not seen a re-issue on any of the punk and minimal wave re-issue labels. Jugend Unsinn is an enigmatic 11-track never-sold-on-discogs C40 tape release with untitled tracks, which takes the listener on a maddening journey of staggering industrial rhythms, D-I-Y punk aesthetics, sweaty jungles, unholy organs, with vocals sung in Danish, English and German, and uncomfortable (but catchy) falsetto back-up vocals by Fauli himself. Jugend Unsinn is a collection of intimate and unabashed minimal wave gems that will take you for a ride.
(Review by Penelope Schnitzel)
Anthropological studies on a remote island, green moss growing uncontrollably, basement goth parties, and vast uninhabited deserts, are among the images evoked by prolific and entrancing German Army. Among 17 releases from the 2016-2017 period - including on Opal Tapes and Total Black labels - Pyura Chilensis (described as a 'tunicate that somewhat resembles a mass of organs inside a rock' and which has the ability to self-fertilize) is on the mossy side of things. And it is addictive. The album artwork feels intrinsically part of the album and so does German Army's extensive video work; after buying PC on bandcamp this Fall I received an e-mail from Peter Kris - founding member of German Army - five days later asking whether I wanted some GA vids with my purchase. Off course, intrigued, I responded in the affirmative. Two days later I received a wetransfer link to a couple dozen entrancing GA videos, bringing new dimensions to the listening experience.
(Review by Penelope Schnitzel)
Recent cassette release of a 2013 digital album by Swedish horrorcore duo, picked up at Today's Art festival in The Hague in September. I was mostly drawn to the artwork (a bloodied hand holding a mic) and the format. The tape revealed chilling synth melodies, deep vocals, and gruesome text, likely influenced by memphis-rap. Just what you want to listen to when you feel like drinking strychnine and frying brains for breakfast on a Saturday morning. Zombie themes are arguably redundant, but at least they compensate in humor.
(Review by Penelope Schnitzel)
_ O . . . o .
_ __ ___ ___| |_ _ __ _ _ ___ ___ _ __ _ __ ___ _ __
| '_ \ / _ \ / _ \ __| '__| | | | / __/ _ \| '__| '_ \ / _ \ '__|
| |_) | (_) | __/ |_| | | |_| | | (_| (_) | | | | | | __/ |
| .__/ \___/ \___|\__|_| \__, | \___\___/|_| |_| |_|\___|_|
|_| |___/
,
___------____
/ \
\ ________/
_/------ \ _______
(_/ /___________| |== |===|
\_| \___/ \___/| |== |== |
| ) / |== |== |
// \ o / |_| |___| ,
_// | ______/ \ / \\
/ \ |------| /-/
// / / \______/ /
\/\______/ ______/
\_______ |
2 Poems from Cal LaFountain check more of his stuff at
https://www.callafountain.com/
Recognized were the several,
and by committee, slaved.
Families sent to wage examinations
found seventy-six cents is not much
but maybe half a sandwich,
ordered from the right window.
Good therefore requires commonplace grounds,
a really first-rate courage.
But, to return,
to brown the strange details,
and honor the rot,
the numerous dignitary perversions,
violations of ethic and of stance,
first, well wishes must hurl
hours through the nimble shadow.
Why, in the experiment,
are the sick, philosophically,
the reasonable?
What is the constant worry making?
So save for a period of organization;
a period of people in all forms
and united in opposing
the changes forced on them.
The slayer obtained,
served the whole spiritual course,
apprehended in the city where man was god
only in saying.
-=-
Here in eternal orbit, Iāve spawned throngs of ascendant guilds.
Iāve made galaxies my vestibules,
licked planetary surfaces,
and mouthed whole ecologies to cleanse my sacred palate.
Iāve flipped listlessly nations
in peak to sense
their minor gravities
feather my holy membrane.
Each sprite and pixie comprise me of obligation.
Forever knee-high figurines tempt
my clemency through prayer and mantra.
With a morsel of motive
I could mist their bones,
rend their cores to purpled playthings,
and scrub their compact histories from the universal lexicon.
But I refrain,
for their distant proximities and headstrong beliefs
are where I mine
my view.
-=-
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__ _(_) __| | ___ ___ __ _ __| |_ _(_) ___ ___
\ \ / / |/ _` |/ _ \/ _ \ / _` |/ _` \ \ / / |/ __/ _ \
\ V /| | (_| | __/ (_) | | (_| | (_| |\ V /| | (_| __/
\_/ |_|\__,_|\___|\___/ \__,_|\__,_| \_/ |_|\___\___|
________________________________
| ____________________________ |
| |____________________________| |
| |____________________________| |
| |____________________________| |
| |____________________________| |
| |____________________________| |
| |____________________________| |
| |____________________________| |
| |____________________________| |
| |____________________________| |
| - - - - - __. |
|________________________________|
________________________________
| ________________ |
| | | | | | | | |
| ---------------- _ _ _ _ _ |
|________________________________|
=== ===
________
/ /|
/ / /
/ / /
/ / /
/_______/ /
(________(/
1975 MEXICO Juan Lopez Moctezuma
BADASS highly controversial piece of mexican cinematography.
Two orphaned girls unleash a satanic force in a Catholic convent. Renowned for its extreme explicit subject matters and dreamy mis-en-scene. A BIG F.U to religious tyranny and stupidy. After a while the movie loses some of its momentum and we get the idea, but horror & nunsploitation fans should take notice.
1959 USA Roger Coreman
A Sinister comedy that takes place around a beatnik cafe/ art gallery, the hippest spot to be. The workplace of Walter Pasley - a slow witted waiter whose dream it is to be a respected beatnik artist. One day he decides to try sculpturing - he seems to have a lack of inspiration until the landlady's cat gets stuck in the wall. I won't spoil much further of the plotline now, just go see it.
A great satire of the beatnik scene and for that matter any subculture around. Replace beatniks with modern pretentious berlin techno wankers and you would have a cool contemporary version. Lines like 'Nobody asked for your opinion Walter, you are just a simple little farm boy and the rest of us are all sophisticated beatniks" and "What ya havin'for breakfast? - Soy and wheat germ pancakes and Garbonzo Omelets with smoked yeast" make this movie timeless.
1971 USA, dir. Walon Green, Ed Spiegel
A gloomy pseudo-documentary that takes you on a deep trip into the realm of insects. Quirky scientist Dr. Hellstrom shares his sinister thoughts about this underrated microcosm and its lurking dangers and potentials. Acting pretty much as a prophet of insect-armageddon, his message is clear: THEY will continue to breed, feed and kill, while our own lousy species is doomed! It might be a bit over the top here and there... Anyways - the camera work is excellent and features lots of atmospherical, colorful macro-visions from flora & fauna. The mysterious, buzzy soundtrack was composed by no other than Lalo Schifrin and is really another great asset here! An oddball niche-movie for the whole family!
(this review was written by Wormholio Limburger)
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_ __ _____ __ _ __ _ _ ___ ___ _ _ _ __ | |_| |__
| '_ \ / _ \ \ /\ / / | '_ \ | | | | / __| / __| | | | '_ \| __| '_ \
| | | | __/\ V V / | | | || |_| || (__ \__ \ |_| | | | | |_| | | |
|_| |_|\___| \_/\_/ |_| |_(_)__, (_)___| |___/\__, |_| |_|\__|_| |_|
|___/ |___/
_ _
_ __ ___ _ __ __ _(_)_ __ ___| |_ ___ _ __ ___
| '__/ _ \ '_ \ / _` | | '__| / __| __/ _ \| '__/ _ \
| | | __/ |_) | (_| | | | \__ \ || (_) | | | __/
|_| \___| .__/ \__,_|_|_| |___/\__\___/|_| \___|
|_|
___________________
|\ \
| \ ___ _________ \ S
| \ \ \___\ ____ \ \ A
\ _ \ \________\ \__\ \_ L
| \ ________________ \| E
|| \ \_________ ___ \ \ S
||\ _ \ \ \__\ \ \_
|| | \ \______\ \| &
| || \ ________________ \
| ||\ _ \ \ ______ ____ \ \_ R
|| | \ \ \__ \ \ _\ \ \| E
| || \ \___\ \_\ \___\ \ P
| ||\ _ \ ________________ \_ A
|| | \ \ ___________ \ \| I
| || \ \ \ \ \ \ R
| ||\ _ \ \_\ \__\ \_ S
|| | \ ___ _________ \|
| || \ \ \___\ ___ \ \
| ||\ _ \ \_________\ \__\ \_
|| | \ \|
| || \___________________\
| || | |
||\ | |
|| \ | I . N . C |
| \|____________________|
| |
| |
NEED A SYNTH FIXED IN THE N.Y.C AREA? Contact SPECS INC SALES & REPAIRS For broken battered, won't turn on, needs tuning, updates, upgrades, or whatever else can go wrong with your synth, drummachine, Technics 1200, DJ Mixer, Effects Unit, Guitar Pedal, Sequencer, etc. Under the caring hands of Chief Tech Chase Smith & customer relations specialist William Burnett -> WE WILL HELP! We have affordable rates and fast turnover.
email: specssalesandrepair /_\t gmail . com
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Private shop in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
_ _ ___ ___
_ _ __ _ _ __ ___ __ _| |__ __ _ _ _| |__ / _ \ / _ \
| | | |/ _` | '_ ` _ \ / _` | '_ \ / _` | | | | | '_ \ (_) | (_) |
| |_| | (_| | | | | | | (_| | | | | (_| | | |_| | |_) \__, |\__, |
\__, |\__,_|_| |_| |_|\__,_|_| |_|\__,_| \__,_|_.__/ /_/ /_/
|___/
_ _ _
_ __ ___ __| | __ _| | _ __ _____ _(_) _____ __
| '_ \ / _ \/ _` |/ _` | | | '__/ _ \ \ / / |/ _ \ \ /\ / /
| |_) | __/ (_| | (_| | | | | | __/\ V /| | __/\ V V /
| .__/ \___|\__,_|\__,_|_| |_| \___| \_/ |_|\___| \_/\_/
|_|
A review of the Yamaha UB-99 Magicstomp BASS amp simulator Fx box send in by Ali Berger
A while back, maybe in 2007 or so, I was in high school and into playing bass and wanted to get an effects pedal. My dad and I did a bunch of research and came across the Yamaha Magicstomp series. There's not a lot of official info available online these days: the Magicstomp had its own site, www.magicstomp.com, which no longer exists, and there are manauls on the Yamaha site but no actual product page. Google Trends shows some searches for "Yamaha Magicstomp" being made as early as 2004 (that's as far back as Google Trends goes) and "Yamaha Magicstomp II" starting in January 2005. So it's from around that time.
Basically the Magicstomp is a very smartly-designed, versatile, powerful digital guitar/bass FX box. Mono input with low/high level switch (for instruments vs line level input), left and right outputs, a two-line 16-character LCD screen, 3 control knobs & "STORE" button under the screen, 3 footswitches and a volume knob. There are 3 models--the UB-99 (for guitar), the UB-99A (for acoustic guitar), and the UB-99B (for bass).
As far as I can tell the only difference is what presets come on them and the color of the casing. There are 99 factory presets and 99 user-editable presets. Every preset has the 3 knobs assigned to 3 different parameters, so there's some control already. But then it gets crazy...
By pressing STORE and then tapping the ON/OFF footswitch you can enter "DEEP EDIT MODE" - this allows you to page through all the parameters of a preset and modify them. Some of the effect types have 19 pages x 3 parameters per page = 57 parameters!! And you can change the effect type for any preset as well--there are standards like distortion (which everyone online says is bad on this pedal, they're mostly right but sometimes bad is good), several types of phasers/flangers/choruses (inculding dynamic ones which follow how loud your playing is, pretty cool), and then some wild stuff--symphonic + reverb effects from expensive Yamaha rack units, 8-line multitap delay, amp simulation mega FX with 5 bands of parametric EQ, and my favorite, a dual pitchshifting delay which sounds like Ableton's Grain Delay. All this in a pedal that now costs like $150 on eBay. If you're mostly a hardware person this is a cheap way to get yourself into some freaky sounds outside of the standard stuff.
Bonus features include "NAME EDIT MODE" where you can name your patches with capital & lowercase letters & special characters. Or hold down the ON/OFF switch to activate the tuner mode, super handy if you have analog or modular synths around--or if you're doing advanced maneuvers with a sampler. There's also a software editor for it but it's not online anywhere now and I don't have the CD that came with the pedal (maybe my dad does).
I can't recommend this thing enough, I've been using it steadily for 10 years, from my funk bass days through to my current house/techno obsession. Pro tip, it doesn't have a power switch, so make sure you unplug it when you're not using it. Mine got too hot at some point and loosened the solder around the power connector--luckily it's very easy to open up and resolder, I did it once and haven't needed to since. Now go hit those auctions, and if you get one with the CD please host the installer files somewhere!
_____ _____ _____
| | | | | |
_______________________________________________
/ \
| AC IN L/MONO-OUTPUT-R INPUT |
| |
| |
| |
| (|) \ / /\ | | /\ | | /\ |
| (\|/) \/ / \ |\ /| / \ |__ | / \ |
| (/|\) || |--| | \/ | |--| | | |--| |
| (n) || | | | | | | | | | | |
| |
| ----------------------------------- |
| | < E D I T - P R M : 0 3 / 1 9 > | |
| | | |
| | E E Q 1 Q E Q 2 F E Q 2 G | |
| ----------------------------------- |
| ___ ___ ___ |
| /* \ / *\ / \ |
| | | | | | *| |
| \___/ \___/ \___/ |
| |
| STORE-O |
|\ /|
| \----- -----/ |
| __ \ / __ |
| / \ \-------------------------------/ / \ |
| \__/ \__/ |
\ ON/OFF /
\ - __ + /
\ / \ /
\ \__/ /
\ /
\_______________________________________/
_ _ _ _
__ _ _ __ _ __ (_) ___ _ __ ___ (_) __| (_)
/ _` | '__| '_ \| |/ _ \ | '_ ` _ \| |/ _` | |
| (_| | | | |_) | | __/ | | | | | | | (_| | |
\__,_|_| | .__/|_|\___| |_| |_| |_|_|\__,_|_|
|_|
_ _
__ _ _ __ _ __ ___ __ _ __ _(_) __ _| |_ ___ _ __
/ _` | '__| '_ \ / _ \/ _` |/ _` | |/ _` | __/ _ \| '__|
| (_| | | | |_) | __/ (_| | (_| | | (_| | || (_) | |
\__,_|_| | .__/ \___|\__, |\__, |_|\__,_|\__\___/|_|
|_| |___/ |___/
_________________ ___________
| |
| \
/ /
/ \ / \
| | | |
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________________________________
|* o RX o CLK o TX. *|
|o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o |
|[ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ |
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| [] PAT [] PLEN [] MODE |
| [] SHFT [] SPAN [] RATE |
| [] VELO [] GATE [] INST |
| [] SYNC [] CHAN [] TRAN |
| [] o |
|* HOLD ::::: *|
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In 2018 I am going to use my midiERROR ARPIE more, because I am pretty much an arpeggiator freak.
The ARPIE MIDI arppegiator hails from Eastbourne in East Sussex, England. Designed by Jason Hotchkiss this little allround standalone MIDI Arpeggiator box lets you arpeggiate any MIDI device - not just boring up and down but all kinds of freaky stuff is possible!
and lots more!
=-..-=
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__ _ ___ ___(_|_)
/ _` / __|/ __| | |
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\__,_|___/\___|_|_|
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___| | _(_) ___(_)_ __ ___ _ _| | __ _| |_ ___ _ __
/ __| |/ / | / __| | '_ ` _ \| | | | |/ _` | __/ _ \| '__|
\__ \ <| | \__ \ | | | | | | |_| | | (_| | || (_) | |
|___/_|\_\_| |___/_|_| |_| |_|\__,_|_|\__,_|\__\___/|_|
An action packed videogame for 2 players
Put your mouse pointer on the start area.
Let someone else press the cursor down key so the screen scrolls down.
Your mouse pointer is the skier.
Move your mouse pointer and avoid all obstacles, trees, trunks, chalets.
If you make it to finish you WIN!
Of course there is no collision detection - the game counts on the players' integrity & 'moral' correctness. This is sort of how some videogames worked with the 1972 Magnavox Oddyssey videogame computer.
START
Place your mouse
pointer here
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| |_| |========= ____
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| | /
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___/
/
____ /
O____)
//////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////
FINISH!!!!!
YOU WIN!!!!!
Congratulations!